V  ;.  • 


HOLMES  BOOK  CO. 

333  S,  Main  St, 

Los  Angeles 


/ 


BALCONY   STORIES 


B A LCO  N Y  Sf  6  Rf £S 


BY 


GRACE    KING 


AUTHOR   OF  "  TALES    OF  A  TIME   AND    PLACE 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1893 


Copyright,  1892,  1893,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


THE  Of.  VINNE   PRESS. 


TO   MY   MOTHER 

WHOSE  BALCONY  STORIES  WERE  THE  DELIGHT 
OF  MY  CHILDHOOD,  THESE  FEEBLE  IMITATIONS 
ARE  GRATEFULLY  AND  LOVINGLY  DEDICATED 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  BALCONY i 

A  DRAMA  OF  THREE f   .    .  5 

LA  GRANDE  DEMOISELLE 21 

MIMI'S  MARRIAGE 37 

THE  MIRACLE  CHAPEL 55 

THE  STORY  OF  A  DAY 67 

ANNE  MARIE  AND  JEANNE  MARIE 89 

A  CRIPPLED  HOPE 103 

"ONE  OF  Us" 125 

THE  LITTLE  CONVENT  GIRL 141 

GRANDMOTHER'S  GRANDMOTHER 163 

THE  OLD  LADY'S  RESTORATION 175 

A  DELICATE  AFFAIR 191 

PUPASSE  .  221 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


"  WALKING  AWAY  WITH  A  SHRUG  OF  THE  SHOUL 
DERS"     Frontispiece 

"  WHERE  is  THAT  IDIOT,  THAT  DOLT,  THAT  SLUG 
GARD,  THAT  SNAIL,  WITH  MY  MAIL?"  ....       n 

CHAMPIGNY .      33 

"I  WEPT,  I  WEPT,  I  WEPT" 51 

"HER  HEART  DROVE  HER  TO  THE  WINDOW"     .      81 
"  ALL  THAT  DAY  WAS  DESPONDENCY,  DEJECTION  "     85 

"THIS  TIME  WE  HAVE  CAUGHT  IT!" 97 

"  THE  QUIET,   DIM-LIGHTED   ROOM  OF  A  CONVA 
LESCENT"  107 

"LITTLE  MAMMY" 109 

"  To  POSE  IN  ABJECT  PATIENCE  AND  AWKWARDNESS  "    1 29 

THE  SISTERS  BID  HER  GOOD-BY 145 

WATCHING  A  LANDING 150 

"TURNED  TO  HER  DOMESTIC  DUTIES" 169 

THE  ROOM  IN  THE  OLD  GALLERY 185 

THE  FIRST  COMMUNION 239 


BALCONY   STORIES 


THE    BALCONY 

r  I  AHERE  is  much  of  life  passed  on  the  bal- 
J-  cony  in  a  country  where  the  summer 
unrolls  in  six  moon-lengths,  and  where  the 
nights  have  to  come  with  a  double  endow 
ment  of  vastness  and  splendor  to  compensate 
for  the  tedious,  sun-parched  days. 

And  in  that  country  the  women  love  to  sit 
and  talk  together  of  summer  nights,  on  bal 
conies,  in  their  vague,  loose,  white  garments,— 
men  are  not  balcony  sitters, — with  their  sleep 
ing  children  within  easy  hearing,  the  stars 
breaking  the  cool  darkness,  or  the  moon 
making  a  show  of  light — oh,  such  a  discreet 
show  of  light !  —  through  the  vines.  And  the 
children  inside,  waking  to  go  from  one  sleep 


,3  »  BALCONY    STORIES 

into  another,  hear  the  low,  soft  mother-voices 
on  the  balcony,  talking  about  this  person  and 
that,  old  times,  old  friends,  old  experiences ; 
and  it  seems  to  them,  hovering  a  moment  in 
wakefulness,  that  there  is  no  end  of  the  world 
or  time,  or  of  the  mother-knowledge  ;  but,  il 
limitable  as  it  is,  the  mother-voices  and  the 
mother-love  and  protection  fill  it  all, — with 
their  mother's  hand  in  theirs,  children  are  not 
afraid  even  of  God, — and  they  drift  into  slum 
ber  again,  their  little  dreams  taking  all  kinds 
of  pretty  reflections  from  the  great  unknown 
horizon  outside,  as  their  fragile  soap-bubbles 
take  on  reflections  from  the  sun  and  clouds. 

Experiences,  reminiscences,  episodes,  picked 
up  as  only  women  know  how  to  pick  them  up 
from  other  women's  lives, — or  other  women's 
destinies,  as  they  prefer  to  call  them, — and  told 
as  only  women  know  how  to  relate  them ; 
what  God  has  done  or  is  doing  with  some 
other  woman  whom  they  have  known  —  that 
is  what  interests  women  once  embarked  on 
their  own  lives, — the  embarkation  takes  place 


THE   BALCONY  3 

at  marriage,  or  after  the  marriageable  time, — 
or,  rather,  that  is  what  interests  the  women 
who  sit  of  summer  nights  on  balconies.  For 
in  those  long-moon  countries  life  is  open  and 
accessible,  and  romances  seem  to  be  furnished 
real  and  gratis,  in  order  to  save,  in  a  languor- 
breeding  climate,  the  ennui  of  reading  and 
writing  books.  Each  woman  has  a  different 
way  of  picking  up  and  relating  her  stories,  as 
each  one  selects  different  pieces,  and  has  a 
personal  way  of  playing  them  on  the  piano. 

Each  story  is  different,  or  appears  so  to  her ; 
each  has  some  unique  and  peculiar  pathos  in 
it.  And  so  she  dramatizes  and  inflects  it,  try 
ing  to  make  the  point  visible  to  her  apparent 
also  to  her  hearers.  Sometimes  the  pathos 
and  interest  to  the  hearers  lie  only  in  this — 
that  the  relater  has  observed  it,  and  gathered 
it,  and  finds  it  worth  telling.  For  do  we  not 
gather  what  we  have  not,  and  is  not  our  own 
lacking  our  one  motive  ?  It  may  be  so,  for  it 
often  appears  so. 

And  if  a  child  inside  be  wakeful  and  preco- 


4  BALCONY    STORIES 

cious,  it  is  not  dreams  alone  that  take  on  re 
flections  from  the  balcony  outside :  through 
the  half-open  shutters  the  still,  quiet  eyes  look 
across  the  dim  forms  on  the  balcony  to  the  star- 
spangled  or  the  moon-brightened  heavens  be 
yond  ;  while  memory  makes  stores  for  the 
future,  and  germs  are  sown,  out  of  which  the 
slow,  clambering  vine  of  thought  issues,  one 
day,  to  decorate  or  hide,  as  it  may  be,  the 
structures  or  ruins  of  life. 


A   DRAMA   OF  THREE 


A   DRAMA   OF   THREE 

IT  was  a  regular  dramatic  performance 
every  first  of  the  month  in  the  little  cot 
tage  of  the  old  General  and  Madame  B . 

It  began  with  the  waking  up  of  the  General 
by  his  wife,  standing  at  the  bedside  with  a  cup 
of  black  coffee. 

"He!  Ah!  Oh,  Honorine  !  Yes  ;  the  first 
of  the  month,  and  affairs — affairs  to  be  trans 
acted." 

On  those  mornings  when  affairs  were  to  be 
transacted  there  was  not  much  leisure  for  the 
household ;  and  it  was  Honorine  who  consti 
tuted  the  household.  Not  the  old  dressing- 
gown  and  slippers,  the  old,  old  trousers,  and 
the  antediluvian  neck-foulard  of  other  days  ! 
Far  from  it.  It  was  a  case  of  warm  water 
(with  even  a  fling  of  cologne  in  it),  of  the 
trimming  of  beard  and  mustache  by  Honorine, 
and  the  black  broadcloth  suit,  and  the  brown 
satin  stock,  and  that  je  ne  sais  qiwi  de  degage 


8  BALCONY    STORIES 

which  no  one  could  possess  or  assume  like  the 
old  General.  Whether  he  possessed  or  as 
sumed  it  is  an  uncertainty  which  hung  over 
the  fine  manners  of  all  the  gentlemen  of  his 
day,  who  were  kept  through  their  youth  in 
Paris  to  cultivate  bon  ton  and  an  education. 

It  was  also  something  of  a  gala-day  for 
Madame  la  Generale  too,  as  it  must  be  a 
gala-day  for  all  old  wives  to  see  their  hus 
bands  pranked  in  the  manners  and  graces 
that  had  conquered  their  maidenhood,  and 
exhaling  once  more  that  ambrosial  fragrance 
which  once  so  well  incensed  their  compelling 
presence. 

Ah,  to  the  end  a  woman  loves  to  celebrate 
her  conquest !  It  is  the  last  touch  of  misfor 
tune  with  her  to  lose  in  the  old,  the  ugly,  and 
the  commonplace  her  youthful  lord  and  mas 
ter.  If  one  could  look  under  the  gray  hairs 
and  wrinkles  with  which  time  thatches  old 
women,  one  would  be  surprised  to  see  the 
flutterings,  the  quiverings,  the  thrills,  the 
emotions,  the  coals  of  the  heart-fires  which 
death  alone  extinguishes,  when  he  commands 
the  tenant  to  vacate. 

Honorine's  hands  chilled  with  the  ice  of 
sixteen  as  she  approached  scissors  to  the 


A   DRAMA    OF    THREE  9 

white  mustache  and  beard.  When  her  fin 
ger-tips  brushed  those  lips,  still  well  formed 
and  roseate,  she  felt  it,  strange  to  say,  on  her 
lips.  When  she  asperged  the  warm  water 
with  cologne, — it  was  her  secret  delight  and 
greatest  effort  of  economy  to  buy  this  co 
logne, —  she  always  had  one  little  moment  of 
what  she  called  faintness — that  faintness 
which  had  veiled  her  eyes,  and  chained  her 
hands,  and  stilled  her  throbbing  bosom,  when 
as  a  bride  she  came  from  the  church  with  him. 
It  was  then  she  noticed  the  faint  fragrance  of 
the  cologne  bath.  Her  lips  would  open  as 
they  did  then,  and  she  would  stand  for  a  mo 
ment  and  think  thoughts  to  which,  it  must 
be  confessed,  she  looked  forward  from  month 
to  month.  What  a  man  he  had  been  !  In 
truth  he  belonged  to  a  period  that  would  ac 
cept  nothing  less  from  Nature  than  physical 
beauty ;  and  Nature  is  ever  subservient  to 
the  period.  If  it  is  to-day  all  small  men, 
and  to-morrow  gnomes  and  dwarfs,  we  may 
know  that  the  period  is  demanding  them  from 
Nature. 

When  the  General  had  completed — let  it 
be  called  no  less  than  the  ceremony  of — 
his  toilet,  he  took  his  chocolate  and  his 


io  BALCONY    STORIES 

pain  de  Paris.  Honorine  could  not  imagine 
him  breakfasting  on  anything  but  pain  de 
Paris.  Then  he  sat  himself  in  his  large  arm 
chair  before  his  escritoire,  and  began  trans 
acting  his  affairs  with  the  usual — 

"But  where    is   that    idiot,   that  dolt,   that 
sluggard,   that  snail,   with  my  mail  ? " 
Honorine,   busy  in  the  breakfast-room : 
"  In  a  moment,  husband.      In  a  moment." 
"  But  he   should  be  here    now.      It   is  the 
first   of  the    month,    it  is   nine   o'clock,   I  am 
ready ;   he  should  be  here." 

"It  is  not  yet  nine  o'clock,  husband." 
"  Not    yet    nine  !      Not  yet   nine !      Am   I 
not  up?     Am    I   not  dressed?      Have  I   not 
breakfasted  before  nine  ?  " 

"  That  is  so,  husband.  That  is  so." 
Honorine's  voice,  prompt  in  cheerful  ac 
quiescence,  came  from  the  next  room,  where 
she  was  washing  his  cup,  saucer,  and  spoon. 
"It  is  getting  worse  and  worse  every  day. 
I  tell  you,  Honorine,  Pompey  must  be  dis 
charged.  He  is  worthless.  He  is  trifling. 
Discharge  him !  Discharge  him  !  Do  not 
have  him  about !  Chase  him  out  of  the 
yard !  Chase  him  as  soon  as  he  makes  his 
appearance!  Do  you  hear,  Honorine?" 


A    DRAMA   OF    THREE  13 

"  You  must  have  a  little  patience,  hus 
band." 

It  was  perhaps  the  only  reproach  one  could 
make  to  Madame  Honorine,  that  she  never 
learned  by  experience. 

"Patience!  Patience!  Patience  is  the 
invention  of  dullards  and  sluggards.  In  a 
well-regulated  world  there  should  be  no  need 
of  such  a  thing  as  patience.  Patience  should 
be  punished  as  a  crime,  or  at  least  as  a 
breach  of  the  peace.  Wherever  patience 
is  found  police  investigation  should  be  made 
as  for  smallpox.  Patience  !  Patience !  I 
never  heard  the  word — I  assure  you,  I 
never  heard  the  word  in  Paris.  What  do 
you  think  would  be  said  there  to  the  mes 
senger  who  craved  patience  of  you  ?  Oh, 
they  know  too  well  in  Paris — a  rataplan 
from  the  walking-stick  on  his  back,  that 
would  be  the  answer ;  and  a,  *  My  good 
fellow,  we  are  not  hiring  professors  of  pa 
tience,  but  legs.'  ' 

"  But,  husband,  you  must  remember  we  do 
not  hire  Pompey.  He  only  does  it  to  oblige 
us,  out  of  his  kindness." 

"  Oblige  us  !  Oblige  me  !  Kindness  !  A 
negro  oblige  me  !  Kind  to  me  !  That  is  it ; 


14  BALCONY   STORIES 

that  is  it.  That  is  the  way  to  talk  under  the 
new  regime.  It  is  favor,  and  oblige,  and  edu 
cation,  and  monsieur,  and  madame,  now.  What 
child's  play  to  call  this  a  country — a  govern 
ment  !  I  would  not  be  surprised  " — jumping 
to  his  next  position  on  this  ever-recurring  first 
of  the  month  theme — "  I  would  not  be  sur 
prised  if  Pompey  has  failed  to  find  the  letter 
in  the  box.  How  do  I  know  that  the  mail 
has  not  been  tampered  with  ?  From  day  to 
day  I  expect  to  hear  it.  What  is  to  prevent  ? 
Who  is  to  interpose  ?  The  honesty  of  the  of 
ficials?  Honesty  of  the  officials — that  is  good! 
What  a  farce — honesty  of  officials  !  That  is 
evidently  what  has  happened.  The  thought 
has  not  occurred  to  me  in  vain.  Pompey  has 
gone.  He  has  not  found  the  letter,  and — 
well ;  that  is  the  end." 

But  the  General  had  still  another  theory  to 
account  for  the  delay  in  the  appearance  of  his 
mail  which  he  always  posed  abruptly  after  the 
exhaustion  of  the  arraignment  of  the  post- 
office. 

"And  why  not  Journel  ?  "  Journal  was  their 
landlord,  a  fellow  of  means,  but  no  extraction, 
and  a  favorite  aversion  of  the  old  gentleman's. 
"Journel  himself?  You  think  he  is  above  it, 


A    DRAMA    OF    THREE  15 

he?  You  think  Journel  would  not  do  such  a 
thing?  Ha!  your  simplicity,  Honorine — your 
simplicity  is  incredible.  It  is  miraculous.  I 
tell  you,  I  have  known  the  Journels,  from 
father  to  son,  for — yes,  for  seventy- five  years. 
Was  not  his  grandfather  the  overseer  on  my 
father's  plantation  ?  I  was  not  five  years  old 
when  I  began  to  know  the  Journels.  And 
this  fellow,  I  know  him  better  than  he  knows 
himself.  I  know  him  as  well  as  God  knows 
him.  I  have  made  up  my  mind.  I  have  made 
it  up  carefully  that  the  first  time  that  letter 
fails  on  the  first  of  the  month  I  shall  have 
Journel  arrested  as  a  thief.  I  shall  land  him 
in  the  penitentiary.  What !  You  think  I  shall 
submit  to  have  my  mail  tampered  with  by  a 
Journel?  Their  contents  appropriated  ?  What! 
You  think  there  was  no  coincidence  in  Jour- 
nel's  offering  me  his  post-office  box  just  the 
month — just  the  month,  before  those  letters 
began  to  arrive  ?  You  think  he  did  not  have 
some  inkling  of  them  ?  Mark  my  words, 
Honorine,  he  did — by  some  of  his  subterra 
nean  methods.  And  all  these  five  years  he 
has  been  arranging  his  plans — that  is  all. 
He  was  arranging  theft,  which  no  doubt  has 
been  consummated  to-day.  Oh,  I  have  re- 


16  BALCONY    STORIES 

gretted  it — I  assure  you  I  have  regretted  it, 
that  I  did  not  promptly  reject  his  proposition, 
that,  in  fact,  I  ever  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  fellow." 

It  was  almost  invariably,  so  regularly  do 
events  run  in  this  world, —  it  was  almost  in 
variably  that  the  negro  messenger  made  his 
appearance  at  this  point.  For  five  years  the 
General  had  perhaps  not  been  interrupted  as 
many  times,  either  above  or  below  the  last 
sentence.  The  mail,  or  rather  the  letter,  was 
opened,  and  the  usual  amount — three  ten- 
dollar  bills — was  carefully  extracted  and 
counted.  And  as  if  he  scented  the  bills,  even 
as  the  General  said  he  did,  within  ten  minutes 
after  their  delivery,  Journel  made  his  appear 
ance  to  collect  the  rent. 

It  could  only  have  been  in  Paris,  among 
that  old  retired  nobility,  who  counted  their 
names  back,  as  they  expressed  it,  "  au  de  $a 
du  deluge,"  that  could  have  been  acquired  the 
proper  manner  of  treating  a  "  roturier  "  land 
lord  :  to  measure  him  with  the  eyes  from 
head  to  foot;  to  hand  the  rent — the  ten-dol 
lar  bill  —  with  the  tips  of  the  fingers;  to 
scorn  a  look  at  the  humbly  tendered  receipt ; 
to  say:  "The  cistern  needs  repairing,  the 


A    DRAMA   OF   THREE  17 

roof  leaks ;  I  must  warn  you  that  unless  such 
notifications  meet  with  more  prompt  attention 
than  in  the  past,  you  must  look  for  another 
tenant,"  etc.,  in  the  monotonous  tone  of  su 
premacy,  and  in  the  French,  not  of  Journel's 
dictionary,  nor  of  the  dictionary  of  any  such 
as  he,  but  in  the  French  of  Racine  and  Cor- 
neille ;  in  the  French  of  the  above  suggested 
circle,  which  inclosed  the  General's  memory, 
if  it  had  not  inclosed — as  he  never  tired  of 
recounting — his  star-like  personality. 

A  sheet  of  paper  always  infolded  the  bank 
notes.  It  always  bore,  in  fine  but  sexless 
tracery,  "  From  one  who  owes  you  much." 

There,  that  was  it,  that  sentence,  which, 
like  a  locomotive,  bore  the  General  and  his 
wife  far  on  these  firsts  of  the  month  to  two 
opposite  points  of  the  horizon,  in  fact,  one 
from  the  other — "  From  one  who  owes  you 
much." 

The  old  gentleman  would  toss  the  paper 
aside  with  the  bill  receipt.  In  the  man  to 
whom  the  bright  New  Orleans  itself  almost 
owed  its  brightness,  it  was  a  paltry  act  to 
search  and  pick  for  a  debtor.  Friends  had 
betrayed  and  deserted  him  ;  relatives  had  for 
gotten  him ;  merchants  had  failed  with  his 


i8  BALCONY    STORIES 

money ;  bank  presidents  had  stooped  to  de 
ceive  him ;  for  he  was  an  old  man,  and  had 
about  run  the  gamut  of  human  disappoint 
ments — a  gamut  that  had  begun  with  a  C 
major  of  trust,  hope,  happiness,  and  money. 

His  political  party  had  thrown  him  aside. 
Neither  for  ambassador,  plenipotentiary,  sen 
ator,  congressman,  not  even  for  a  clerkship, 
could  he  be  nominated  by  it.  Certes ! 
"  From  one  who  owed  him  much."  He  had 
fitted  the  cap  to  a  new  head,  the  first  of 
every  month,  for  five  years,  and  still  the  list 
was  not  exhausted.  Indeed,  it  would  have 
been  hard  for  the  General  to  look  anywhere 
and  not  see  some  one  whose  obligations  to 
him  far  exceeded  this  thirty  dollars  a  month. 
Could  he  avoid  being  happy  with  such  eyes  ? 

But  poor  Madame  Honorine !  She  who 
always  gathered  up  the  receipts,  and  the 
"  From  one  who  owes  you  much " ;  who 
could  at  an  instant's  warning  produce  the 
particular  ones  for  any  month  of  the  past 
half-decade.  She  kept  them  filed,  not  only 
in  her  armoire,  but  the  scrawled  papers 
— skewered,  as  it  were,  somewhere  else — 
where  women  from  time  immemorial  have 
skewered  such  unsigned  papers.  She  was 


A   DRAMA   OF   THREE  19 

not  original  in  her  thoughts — no  more,  for 
the  matter  of  that,  than  the  General  was. 
Tapped  at  any  time  on  the  first  of  the  month, 
when  she  would  pause  in  her  drudgery  to 
reimpale  her  heart  by  a  sight  of  the  writ 
ten  characters  on  the  scrap  of  paper,  her 
thoughts  would  have  been  found  flowing 
thus,  "  One  can  give  everything,  and  yet 
be  sure  of  nothing." 

When  Madame  Honorine  said  "  every 
thing,"  she  did  not,  as  women  in  such  cases 
often  do,  exaggerate.  When  she  married 
the  General,  she  in  reality  gave  the  youth 
of  sixteen,  the  beauty  (ah,  do  not  trust  the 
denial  of  those  wrinkles,  the  thin  hair,  the 
faded  eyes !)  of  an  angel,  the  dot  of  an 
heiress.  Alas !  It  was  too  little  at  the 
time.  Had  she  in  her  own  person  united  all 
the  youth,  all  the  beauty,  all  the  wealth, 
sprinkled  parsimoniously  so  far  and  wide 
over  all  the  women  in  this  land,  would  she 
at  that  time  have  clone  aught  else  with  this 
than  immolate  it  on  the  burning  pyre  of  the 
General's  affection?  "And  yet  be  sure  of 
nothing." 

It  is  not  necessary,  perhaps,  to  explain  that 
last  clause.  It  is  very  little  consolation  for 


20  BALCONY    STORIES 

wives  that  their  husbands  have  forgotten, 
when  some  one  else  remembers.  Some  one 
else !  Ah !  there  could  be  so  many  some 
one  elses  in  the  General's  life,  for  in  truth 
he  had  been  irresistible  to  excess.  But  this 
was  one  particular  some  one  else  who  had 
been  faithful  for  five  years.  Which  one  ? 

When  Madame  Honorine  solves  that  enig 
ma  she  has  made  up  her  mind  how  to  act. 

As  for  Journel,  it  amused  him  more  and 
more.  He  would  go  away  from  the  little 
cottage  rubbing  his  hands  with  pleasure  (he 
never  saw  Madame  Honorine,  by  the  way, 
only  the  General).  He  would  have  given 
far  more  than  thirty  dollars  a  month  for  this 
drama;  for  he  was  not  only  rich,  but  a  great 
farceur. 


LA   GRANDE   DEMOISELLE 


LA  GRANDE    DEMOISELLE 

THAT  was  what  she  was  called  by  every 
body  as  soon  as  she  was  seen  or  de 
scribed.  Her  name,  besides  baptismal  titles, 
was  Idalie  Sainte  Foy  Mortemart  des  Islets. 
When  she  came  into  society,  in  the  brilliant 
little  world  of  New  Orleans,  it  was  the  event 
of  the  season,  and  after  she  came  in,  what 
ever  she  did  became  also  events.  Whether 
she  went,  or  did  not  go ;  what  she  said,  or 
did  not  say ;  what  she  wore,  and  did  not 
wear — all  these  became  important  matters 
of  discussion,  quoted  as  much  or  more  than 
what  the  president  said,  or  the  governor 
thought.  And  in  those  days,  the  days  of 
'59,  New  Orleans  was  not,  a^  it  is  now,  a 
one-heiress  place,  but  it  may  be  said  that 
one  could  find  heiresses  then  as  one  finds 
type-writing  girls  now. 

Mademoiselle  Idalie  received  her  birth,  and 
what    education    she    had,    on    her    parents' 

23 


24  BALCONY    STORIES 

plantation,  the  famed  old  Reine  Sainte  Foy 
place,  and  it  is  no  secret  that,  like  the  an 
cient  kings  of  France,  her  birth  exceeded  her 
education. 

It  was  a  plantation,  the  Reine  Sainte  Foy, 
the  richness  and  luxury  of  which  are  really 
well  described  in  those  perfervid  pictures  of 
tropical  life,  at  one  time  the  passion  of  phil 
anthropic  imaginations,  excited  and  exciting 
over  the  horrors  of  slavery.  Although  these 
pictures  were  then  often  accused  of  being  pur 
posely  exaggerated,  they  seem  now  to  fall  short 
of,  instead  of  surpassing,  the  truth.  Stately 
walls,  acres  of  roses,  miles  of  oranges,  unmea 
sured  fields  of  cane,  colossal  sugar-house  — 
they  were  all  there,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  with 
the  slaves,  slaves,  slaves  everywhere,  whole 
villages  of  negro  cabins.  And  there  were 
also,  most  noticeable  to  the  natural,  as  well 
as  to  the  visionary,  eye — there  were  the  ease, 
idleness,  extravagance,  self-indulgence,  pomp, 
pride,  arrogance,  in  short  the  whole  enumera 
tion,  the  moral  sine  qua  non,  as  some  people 
considered  it,  of  the  wealthy  slaveholder  of 
aristocratic  descent  and  tastes. 

What  Mademoiselle  Idalie  cared  to  learn 
she  studied,  what  she  did  not  she  ignored ; 


LA   GRANDE   DEMOISELLE  25 

and  she  followed  the  same  simple  rule  untram- 
meled  in  her  eating,  drinking,  dressing,  and 
comportment  generally ;  and  whatever  disci 
pline  may  have  been  exercised  on  the  place, 
either  in  fact  or  fiction,  most  assuredly  none 
of  it,  even  so  much  as  in  a  threat,  ever  at 
tainted  her  sacred  person.  When  she  was 
just  turned  sixteen,  Mademoiselle  Idalie  made 
up  her  mind  to  go  into  society.  Whether  she 
was  beautiful  or  not,  it  is  hard  to  say.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  appreciate  properly  the 
beauty  of  the  rich,  the  very  rich.  The  unfet 
tered  development,  the  limitless  choice  of  ac 
cessories,  the  confidence,  the  self-esteem,  the 
sureness  of  expression,  the  simplicity  of  pur 
pose,  the  ease  of  execution — all  these  produce 
a  certain  effect  of  beauty  behind  which  one 
really  cannot  get  to  measure  length  of  nose, 
or  brilliancy  of  eye.  This  much  can  be  said : 
there  was  nothing  in  her  that  positively  con 
tradicted  any  assumption  of  beauty  on  her 
part,  or  credit  of  it  on  the  part  of  others.  She 
was  very  tall  and  very  thin  with  small  head, 
long  neck,  black  eyes,  and  abundant  straight 
black  hair, — for  which  her  hair-dresser  de 
served  more  praise  than  she, — good  teeth,  of 
course,  and  a  mouth  that,  even  in  prayer, 


26  BALCONY    STORIES 

talked  nothing  but  commands ;  that  is  about 
all  she  had  en  fait  d'ornements,  as  the  mo 
distes  say.  It  may  be  added  that  she  walked 
as  if  the  Reine  Sainte  Foy  plantation  extended 
over  the  whole  earth,  and  the  soil  of  it  were 
too  vile  for  her  tread.  Of  course  she  did  not 
buy  her  toilets  in  New  Orleans.  Everything 
was  ordered  from  Paris,  and  came  as  regu 
larly  through  the  custom-house  as  the  modes 
and  robes  to  the  milliners.  She  was  furnished 
by  a  certain  house  there,  just  as  one  of  a  royal 
family  would  be  at  the  present  day.  As  this 
had  lasted  from  her  layette  up  to  her  sixteenth 
year,  it  may  be  imagined  what  took  place 
when  she  determined  to  make  her  debut. 
Then  it  was  literally,  not  metaphorically,  carte 
blanche,  at  least  so  it  got  to  the  ears  of  society. 
She  took  a  sheet  of  note-paper,  wrote  the  date 
at  the  top,  added,  "  I  make  my  debut  in  No 
vember,"  signed  her  name  at  the  extreme  end 
of  the  sheet,  addressed  it  to  her  dressmaker 
in  Paris,  and  sent  it. 

It  was  said  that  in  her  dresses  the  very 
handsomest  silks  were  used  for  linings,  and 
that  real  lace  was  used  where  others  put  imi 
tation, — around  the  bottoms  of  the  skirts,  for 
instance, —  and  silk  ribbons  of  the  best  qual- 


LA    GRANDE   DEMOISELLE  27 

ity  served  the  purposes  of  ordinary  tapes ; 
and  sometimes  the  buttons  were  of  real  gold 
and  silver,  sometimes  set  with  precious  stones. 
Not  that  she  ordered  these  particulars,  but 
the  dressmakers,  when  given  carte  blanche  by 
those  who  do  not  condescend  to  details,  so 
soon  exhaust  the  outside  limits  of  garments 
that  perforce  they  take  to  plastering  them  in 
side  with  gold,  so  to  speak,  and,  when  the 
bill  goes  in,  they  depend  upon  the  furnishings 
to  carry  out  a  certain  amount  of  the  contract 
in  justifying  the  price.  And  it  was  said  that 
these  costly  dresses,  after  being  worn  once  or 
twice,  were  cast  aside,  thrown  upon  the  floor, 
given  to  the  negroes  —  anything  to  get  them 
out  of  sight.  Not  an  inch  of  the  real  lace, 
not  one  of  the  jeweled  buttons,  not  a  scrap 
of  ribbon,  was  ripped  off  to  save.  And  it  was 
said  that  if  she  wanted  to  romp  with  her  dogs 
in  all  her  finery,  she  did  it ;  she  was  known 
to  have  ridden  horseback,  one  moonlight 
night,  all  around  the  plantation  in  a  white 
silk  dinner-dress  flounced  with  Alengon.  And 
at  night,  when  she  came  from  the  balls,  tired, 
tired  to  death  as  only  balls  can  render  one, 
she  would  throw  herself  down  upon  her  bed 
in  her  tulle  skirts, —  on  top,  or  not,  of  the 


28  BALCONY   STORIES 

exquisite  flowers,  she  did  not  care, —  and 
make  her  maid  undress  her  in  that  position ; 
often  having  her  bodices  cut  off  her,  because 
she  was  too  tired  to  turn  over  and  have  them 
unlaced. 

That  she  was  admired,  raved  about,  loved 
even,  goes  without  saying.  After  the  first 
month  she  held  the  refusal  of  half  the  beaux 
of  New  Orleans.  Men  did  absurd,  undigni 
fied,  preposterous  things  for  her ;  and  she  ? 
Love  ?  Marry  ?  The  idea  never  occurred  to 
her.  She  treated  the  most  exquisite  of  her 
pretenders  no  better  than  she  treated  her 
Paris  gowns,  for  the  matter  of  that.  She 
could  not  even  bring  herself  to  listen  to  a 
proposal  patiently ;  whistling  to  her  dogs,  in 
the  middle  of  the  most  ardent  protestations, 
or  jumping  up  and  walking  away  with  a  shrug 
of  the  shoulders,  and  a  "  Bah  !" 

Well !  Every  one  knows  what  happened 
after  '59.  There  is  no  need  to  repeat.  The 
history  of  one  is  the  history  of  all.  But  there 
was  this  difference  —  for  there  is  every  shade 
of  difference  in  misfortune,  as  there  is  every 
shade  of  resemblance  in  happiness.  Morte- 
mart  des  Islets  went  off  to  fight.  That  was 
natural ;  his  family  had  been  doing  that,  he 


LA    GRANDE    DEMOISELLE  29 

thought,  or  said,  ever  since  Charlemagne. 
Just  as  naturally  he  was  killed  in  the  first 
engagement.  They,  his  family,  were  always 
among  the  first  killed ;  so  much  so  that  it 
began  to  be  considered  assassination  to  fight 
a  duel  with  any  of  them.  All  that  was  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  events.  One  difference  in 
their  misfortunes  lay  in  that  after  the  city 
was  captured,  their  plantation,  so  near,  con 
venient,  and  rich  in  all  kinds  of  provisions, 
was  selected  to  receive  a  contingent  of  troops 
—  a  colored  company.  If  it  had  been  a  col 
ored  company  raised  in  Louisiana  it  might 
have  been  different ;  and  these  negroes  mixed 
with  the  negroes  in  the  neighborhood, — and 
negroes  are  no  better  than  whites,  for  the 
proportion  of  good  and  bad  among  them, — 
and  the  officers  were  always  off  duty  when 
they  should  have  been  on,  and  on  when  they 
should  have  been  off. 

One  night  the  dwelling  caught  fire.  There 
was  an  immediate  rush  to  save  the  ladies 
Oh,  there  was  no  hesitation  about  that !  They 
were  seized  in  their  beds,  and  carried  out  in 
the  very  arms  of  their  enemies  ;  carried  away 
off  to  the  sugar-house,  and  deposited  there. 
No  danger  of  their  doing  anything  but  keep 


30  BALCONY.  STORIES 

very  quiet  and  still  in  their  chemises  de  nuit, 
and  their  one  sheet  apiece,  which  was  about 
all  that  was  saved  from  the  conflagration— 
that  is,  for  them.  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  this  is  all  hearsay.  When  one  has  not 
been  present,  one  knows  nothing  of  one's 
own  knowledge ;  one  can  only  repeat.  It 
has  been  repeated,  however,  that  although 
the  house  was  burned  to  the  ground,  and 
everything  in  it  destroyed,  wherever,  for  a 
year  afterward,  a  man  of  that  company  or 
of  that  neighborhood  was  found,  there  could 
have  been  found  also,  without  search-warrant, 
property  that  had  belonged  to  the  Des  Islets. 
That  is  the  story ;  and  it  is  believed  or  not, 
exactly  according  to  prejudice. 

How  the  ladies  ever  got  out  of  the  sugar- 
house,  history  does  not  relate  ;  nor  what  they 
did.  It  was  not  a  time  for  sociability,  either 
personal  or  epistolary.  At  one  offensive  word 
your  letter,  and  you,  very  likely,  examined ; 
and  Ship  Island  for  a  hotel,  with  soldiers  for 
hostesses  !  Madame  Des  Islets  died  very  soon 
after  the  accident  —  of  rage,  they  say;  and 
that  was  about  all  the  public  knew. 

Indeed,  at  that  time  the  society  of  New 
Orleans  had  other  things  to  think  about  than 


LA   GRANDE   DEMOISELLE  31 

the  fate  of  the  Des  Islets.  As  for  la  grande 
demoiselle,  she  had  prepared  for  her  own  ob 
livion  in  the  hearts  of  her  female  friends.  And 
the  gentlemen, — her  preux  chevaliers, — they 
were  burning  with  other  passions  than  those 
which  had  driven  them  to  her  knees,  encoun 
tering  a  little  more  serious  response  than 
"bans"  and  shrugs.  And,  after  all,  a  woman 
seems  the  quickest  thing  forgotten  when  once 
the  important  affairs  of  life  come  to  men  for 
consideration. 

It  might  have  been  ten  years  according 
to  some  calculations,  or  ten  eternities, —  the 
heart  and  the  almanac  never  agree  about 
time, —  but  one  morning  old  Champigny 
(they  used  to  call  him  Champignon)  was 
walking  along  his  levee  front,  calculating 
how  soon  the  water  would  come  over,  and 
drown  him  out,  as  the  Louisianians  say.  It 
was  before  a  seven -o'clock  breakfast,  cold, 
wet,  rainy,  and  discouraging.  The  road  was 
knee-deep  in  mud,  and  so  broken  up  with 
hauling,  that  it  was  like  walking  upon  waves 
to  get  over  it.  A  shower  poured  down.  Old 
Champigny  was  hurrying  in  when  he  saw  a 
figure  approaching.  He  had  to  stop  to  look 
at  it,  for  it  was  worth  while.  The  head  was 


32  BALCONY    STORIES 

hidden  by  a  green  barege  veil,  which  the 
showers  had  plentifully  besprinkled  with 
dew;  a  tall,  thin  figure.  Figure!  No;  not 
even  could  it  be  called  a  figure :  straight  up 
and  down,  like  a  finger  or  a  post ;  high- 
shouldered,  and  a  step  —  a  step  like  a  plow 
man's.  No  umbrella;  no  —  nothing  more,  in 
fact.  It  does  not  sound  so  peculiar  as  when 
first  related — something  must  be  forgotten. 
The  feet  —  oh,  yes,  the  feet  —  they  were  like 
waffle-irons,  or  frying-pans,  or  anything  of 
that  shape. 

Old  Champigny  did  not  care  for  women  — 
he  never  had;  they  simply  did  not  exist  for 
him  in  the  order  of  nature.  He  had  been 
married  once,  it  is  true,  about  a  half  century 
before ;  but  that  was  not  reckoned  against 
the  existence  of  his  prejudice,  because  he 
was  celibataire  to  his  finger-tips,  as  any  one 
could  see  a  mile  away.  But  that  woman 
intrigue "d  him. 

He  had  no  servant  to  inquire  from.  He 
performed  all  of  his  own  domestic  work  in 
the  wretched  little  cabin  that  replaced  his 
old  home.  For  Champigny  also  belonged  to 
the  great  majority  of  the  nouveaux  pauvres. 
He  went  out  into  the  rice-field,  where  were 


LA    GRANDE    DEMOISELLE 


33 


one  or  two  hands  that  worked  on  shares  with 
him,  and  he  asked  them.  They  knew  imme 
diately  ;  there  is  nothing  connected  with  the 
parish  that  a  field-hand  does  not  know  at 
once.  She  was  the  teacher  of  the  colored 


CHAMPIGNY. 


public  school  some  three  or  four  miles  away. 
"Ah,"  thought  Champigny,  ''some  Northern 
lady  on  a  mission."  He  watched  to  see  her 
return  in  the  evening,  which  she  did,  of 
course ;  in  a  blinding  rain.  Imagine  the 


34  BALCONY    STORIES 

green  barege  veil  then  ;  for  it  remained  al 
ways  down  over  her  face. 

Old  Champigny  could  not  get  over  it  that 
he  had  never  seen  her  before.  But  he  must 
have  seen  her,  and,  with  his  abstraction  and 
old  age,  not  have  noticed  her,  for  he  found 
out  from  the  negroes  that  she  had  been 
teaching  four  or  five  years  there.  And  he 
found  out  also  —  how,  is  not  important — that 
she  was  Idalie  Sainte  Foy  Mortemart  des 
Islets.  La  grande  demoiselle!  He  had 
never  known  her  in  the  old  days,  owing  to 
his  uncomplimentary  attitude  toward  women, 
but  he  knew  of  her,  of  course,  and  of  her 
family.  It  should  have  been  said  that  his 
plantation  was  about  fifty  miles  higher  up 
the  river,  and  on  the  opposite  bank  to  Reine 
Sainte  Foy.  It  seemed  terrible.  The  old 
gentleman  had  had  reverses  of  his  own, 
which  would  bear  the  telling,  but  nothing 
was  more  shocking  to  him  than  this — that 
Idalie  Sainte  Foy  Mortemart  des  Islets 
should  be  teaching  a  public  colored  school 
for — it  makes  one  blush  to  name  it — seven 
dollars  and  a  half  a  month.  For  seven  dol 
lars  and  a  half  a  month  to  teach  a  set  of — 
well !  He  found  out  where  she  lived,  a  little 


LA    GRANDE    DEMOISELLE  35 

cabin  —  not  so  much  worse  than  his  own,  for 
that  matter  —  in  the  corner  of  a  field;  no 
companion,  no  servant,  nothing  but  food  and 
shelter.  Her  clothes  have  been  described. 

Only  the  good  God  himself  knows  what 
passed  in  Champigny's  mind  on  the  subject. 
We  know  only  the  results.  He  went  and 
married  la  grande  demoiselle.  How?  Only 
the  good  God  knows  that  too.  Every  first 
of  the  month,  when  he  goes  to  the  city  to 
buy  provisions,  he  takes  her  with  him  —  in 
fact,  he  takes  her  everywhere  with  him. 

Passengers  on  the  railroad  know  them 
well,  and  they  always  have  a  chance  to  see 
her  face.  When  she  passes  her  old  planta 
tion  la  grande  demoiselle  always  lifts  her  veil 
for  one  instant — the  inevitable  green  barege 
veil.  What  a  face  !  Thin,  long,  sallow,  pet 
rified  !  And  the  neck  !  If  she  would  only  tie 
something  around  the  neck  !  And  her  plain, 
coarse  cottonade  gown  !  The  negro  women 
about  her  were  better  dressed  than  she. 

Poor  old  Champignon  !  It  was  not  an  act 
of  charity  to  himself,  no  doubt  cross  and  dis 
agreeable,  besides  being  ugly.  And  as  for 
love,  gratitude  ! 


MI  MI'S    MARRIAGE 


MI  MI'S    MARRIAGE 

HT^HI'S  is  how  she  told  about  it,  sitting  in 
.I  her  little  room, — her  bridal  chamber,— 
not  larger,  really  not  larger  than  sufficed  for 
the  bed  there,  the  armoire  here,  the  bureau 
opposite,  and  the  washstand  behind  the  door, 
the  corners  all  touching.  But  a  nice  set  of 
furniture,  quite  comme  il  faut, — handsome,  in 
fact, — as  a  bride  of  good  family  should  have. 
And  she  was  dressed  very  prettily,  too,  in  her 
long  white  negligee,  with  plenty  of  lace  and 
ruffles  and  blue  ribbons, — such  as  only  the 
Creole  girls  can  make,  and  brides,  alas  !  wear, 
— the  pretty  honeymoon  costume  that  sug 
gests,  that  suggests — well !  to  proceed.  "The 
poor  little  cat ! "  as  one  could  not  help  calling 
her,  so  mignonne,  so  blonde,  with  the  pretty 
black  eyes,  and  the  rosebud  of  a  mouth, — 
whenever  she  closed  it, — a  perfect  kiss. 

"  But  you  know,  Louise,"  she  said,  begin 
ning  quite  seriously  at  the  beginning,  "  papa 


40  BALCONY    STORIES 

would  never  have  consented,  never,  never — 
poor  papa !  Indeed,  I  should  never  have 
asked  him  ;  it  would  only  have  been  one  hu 
miliation  more  for  him,  poor  papa !  So  it 
was  well  he  was  dead,  if  it  was  God's  will  for 
it  to  be.  Of  course  I  had  my  dreams,  like 
everybody.  I  was  so  blonde,  so  blonde,  and 
so  small ;  it  seemed  like  a  law  I  should  marry 
a  brim,  a  tall,  handsome  brun>  with  a  mus 
tache  and  a  fine  barytone  voice.  That  was 
how  I  always  arranged  it,  and  —  you  will 
laugh — but  a  large,  large  house,  and  num 
bers  of  servants,  and  a  good  cook,  but  a  su 
perlatively  good  cuisine,  and  wine  and  all 
that,  and  long,  trailing  silk  dresses,  and  the 
ater  every  night,  and  voyages  to  Europe,  and 
— well,  everything  God  had  to  give,  in  fact. 
You  know,  I  get  that  from  papa,  wanting 
everything  God  has  to  give !  Poor  papa ! 
It  seemed  to  me  I  was  to  meet  him  at  any 
time,  my  handsome  brun.  I  used  to  look  for 
him  positively  on  my  way  to  school,  and  back 
home  again,  and  whenever  I  would  think  of 
him  I  would  try  and  walk  so  prettily,  and 
look  so  pretty  !  Mon  Dicii  /  I  was  not  ten 
years  old  yet !  And  afterward  it  was  only  for 
that  that  I  went  into  society.  What  should 


MIMFS    MARRIAGE  41 

girls  go  into  society  for  otherwise  but  to  meet 
their  brun  or  their  blond  ?  Do  you  think  it 
is  amusing,  to  economize  and  economize,  and 
sew  and  sew,  just  to  go  to  a  party  to  dance  ? 
No  !  I  assure  you,  I  went  into  society  only 
for'that;  and  I  do  not  believe  what  girls  say 
— they  go  into  society  only  for  that  too. 

"  You  know  at  school  how  we  used  to  tirer 
la  bonne  aventure^  Well,  every  time  he  was 
not  brun,  riche,  avenant,  Jules,  or  Raoul,  or 
Guy,  I  simply  would  not  accept  it,  but  would 
go  on  drawing  until  I  obtained  what  I  wanted. 
As  I  tell  you,  I  thought  it  was  my  destiny. 
And  when  I  would  try  with  a  flower  to  see  if 
he  loved  me, — //  maime,  un  pen,  beaucoup, 
passionement,  pas  dii  tout, — if  it  were  pas  du 
tout,  I  would  always  throw  the  flower  away, 
and  begin  tearing  off  the  leaves  from  another 
one  immediately.  Passionement  was  what  I 
wanted,  and  I  always  got  it  in  the  end. 

"  But  papa,  poor  papa,  he  never  knew  any 
thing  of  that,  of  course.  He  would  get  furi- 

1  La  bonne  aventure  is  or  was  generally  a  very  much  battered 
foolscap  copy-book,  which  contained  a  list  of  all  possible  elements 
of  future  (school-girl)  happiness.  Each  item  answered  a  question, 
and  had  a  number  affixed  to  it.  To  draw  one's  fortune  consisted  in 
asking  question  after  question,  and  guessing  a  number,  a  companion 
volunteering  to  read  the  answers.  To  avoid  cheating,  the  books 
were  revised  from  time  to  time,  and  the  numbers  changed. 


BALCONY    STORIES 


ous  when  any  one  would  come  to  see  me.  and 
sometimes,  when  he  would  take  me  in  society, 
if  I  danced  with  a  'nobody,' — as  he  called 


no  matter  whom   I   danced  with, — he  would 

come  up  and  take  me  away  with  such  an  air 

—  such   an   air !      It   would   seem   that    papa 

thought  himself  better  than  everybody  in  the 


MIMPS    MARRIAGE  43 

world.  But  it  went  worse  and  worse  with 
papa,  not  only  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  but 
in  health.  Always  thinner  and  thinner,  al 
ways  a  cough ;  in  fact,  you  know,  I  am  a  lit 
tle  feeble-chested  myself,  from  papa.  And 
Clementine  !  Clementine  with  her  children  — 
just  think,  Louise,  eight !  I  thank  God  my 
mama  had  only  me,  if  papa's  second  wife  had 
to  have  so  many.  And  so  naughty !  I  assure 
you,  they  were  all  devils ;  and  no  correction, 
no  punishment,  no  education — but  you  know 
Clementine !  I  tell  you,  sometimes  on  ac 
count  of  those  children  I  used  to  think  my 
self  in  'ell  [making  the  Creole's  attempt  and 
failure  to  pronounce  the  h],  and  Clementine 
had  no  pride  about  them.  If  they  had  shoes, 
well ;  if  they  had  not  shoes,  well  also. 

"  '  But  Clementine  !  '  I  would  expostulate, 
I  would  pray  — 

"  f  But  do  not  be  a  fool,  Mimi,'  she  would 
say.  'Am  I  God?  Can  I  do  miracles?  Or 
must  I  humiliate  your  papa?' 

"  That  was  true.  Poor  papa !  It  would 
have  humiliated  papa.  When  he  had  money 
he  gave ;  only  it  was  a  pity  he  had  no  money. 
As  for  what  he  observed,  he  thought  it  was 
Clementine's  negligence.  For,  it  is  true, 


44  BALCONY    STORIES 

Clementine  had  no  order,  no  industry,  in  the 
best  of  fortune  as  in  the  worst.  But  to  do 
her  justice,  it  was  not  her  fault  this  time, 
only  she  let  him  believe  it,  to  save  his  pride  ; 
and  Clementine,  you  know,  has  a  genius  for 
stories.  I  assure  you,  Louise,  I  was  despe 
rate.  I  prayed  to  God  to  help  me,  to  advise 
me.  I  could  not  teach  — I  had  no  education; 
I  could  not  go  into  a  shop  —  that  would 
be  dishonoring  papa  —  and  enfin,  I  was  too 
pretty.  'And  proclaim  to  the  world,'  Clem 
entine  would  cry,  '  that  your  papa  does  not 
make  money  for  his  family.'  That  was  true. 
The  world  is  so  malicious.  You  know,  Lou 
ise,  sometimes  it  seems  to  me  the  world  is 
glad  to  hear  that  a  man  cannot  support  his 
family;  it  compliments  those  who  can.  As 
if  papa  had  not  intelligence,  and  honor,  and 
honesty  !  But  they  do  not  count  now  as  in 
old  times,  'before  the  war.' 

"And  so,  when  I  thought  of  that,  I  laughed 
and  talked  and  played  the  thoughtless  like 
Clementine,  and  made  bills.  We  made  bills 
—  we  had  to  —  for  everything;  we  could  do 
that,  you  know,  on  our  old  name  and  family. 
But  it  is  too  long !  I  am  sure  it  is  too  long 
and  tiresome !  What  egotism  on  my  part ! 


MIMI'S    MARRIAGE  45 

Come,  we  will  take  a  glass  of  anisette,  and 
talk  of  something  else — your  trip,  your 
family.  No?  no?  You  are  only  asking  me 
out  of  politeness  !  You  are  so  aitnable,  so 
kind.  Well,  if  you  are  not  ennuyee  —  in 
fact,  I  want  to  tell  you.  It  was  too  long  to 
write,  and  I  detest  a  pen.  To  me  there  is 
no  instrument  of  torture  like  a  pen. 

"  Well,  the  lady  next  door,  she  was  an 
American,  and  common,  very  common,  ac 
cording  to  papa.  In  comparison  to  us  she 
had  no  family  whatever.  Our  little  children 
were  forbidden  even  to  associate  with  her  lit 
tle  children.  I  thought  that  was  ridiculous — 
not  that  I  am  a  democrat,  but  I  thought  it 
ridiculous.  But  the  children  cared;  they  were 
so  disobedient  and  they  were  always  next 
door,  and  they  always  had  something  nice  to 
eat  over  there.  I  sometimes  thought  Clem 
entine  used  to  encourage  their  disobedience, 
just  for  the  good  things  they  got  to  eat  over 
there.  But  papa  was  always  making  fun  of 
them;  you  know  what  a  sharp  tongue  he  had. 
The  gentleman  was  a  clerk ;  and,  according 
to  papa,  the  only  true  gentlemen  in  the  world 
had  family  and  a  profession.  We  did  not  dare 
allow  ourselves  to  think  it,  but  Clementine 


46  BALCONY    STORIES 

and  I   knew  that  they,  in  fact,  were  in  more 
comfortable  circumstances  than  we. 

"  The  lady,  who  also  had  a  great  number 
of  children,  sent  one  day,  with  all  the  discre 
tion  and  delicacy  possible,  and  asked  me  if  I 
would  be  so  kind  as  to — guess  what,  Louise  ! 
But  only  guess!  But  you  never  could!  Well, 
to  darn  some  of  her  children's  stockings  for 
her.  It  was  God  who  inspired  her,  I  am 
sure,  on  account  of  my  praying  so  much  to 
him.  You  will  be  shocked,  Louise,  when  I 
tell  you.  It  sounds  like  a  sin,  but  I  was  not 
in  despair  when  papa  died.  It  was  a  grief, — 
yes,  it  seized  the  heart,  but  it  was  not  despair. 
Men  ought  not  to  be  subjected  to  the  humili 
ation  of  life;  they  are  not  like  women,  you 
know.  We  are  made  to  stand  things ;  they 
have  their  pride, — their  orgueil^  as  we  say  in 
French, — and  that  is  the  point  of  honor  with 
some  men.  And  Clementine  and  I,  we  could 
not  have  concealed  it  much  longer.  In  fact, 
the  truth  was  crying  out  everywhere,  in  the 
children,  in  the  house,  in  our  own  persons, 
in  our  faces.  The  darning  did  not  provide  a 
superfluity,  I  guarantee  you  ! 

"  Poor  papa  !      He  caught  cold.      He  was 
condemned   from   the   first.      And   so   all   his 


MIMI'S    MARRIAGE  47 

fine  qualities  died  ;  for  he  had  fine  qualities — 
they  were  too  fine  for  this  age,  that  was  all. 
Yes ;  it  was  a  kindness  of  God  to  take  him 
before  he  found  out.  If  it  was  to  be,  it  was 
better.  Just  so  with  Clementine  as  with  me. 
After  the  funeral  —  crack  !  everything  went 
to  pieces.  We  were  at  the  four  corners  for 
the  necessaries  of  life,  and  the  bills  came  in  — 
my  dear,  the  bills  that  came  in  !  What  mem 
ories  !  what  memories  !  Clementine  and  I  ex 
claimed  ;  there  were  some  bills  that  we  had 
completely  forgotten  about.  The  lady  next 
door  sent  her  brother  over  when  papa  died. 
He  sat  up  all  night,  that  night,  and  he  as 
sisted  us  in  all  our  arrangements.  And  he 
came  in  afterward,  every  evening.  If  papa 
had  been  there,  there  would  have  been  a  fine 
scene  over  it ;  he  would  have  had  to  take  the 
door,  very  likely.  But  now  there  was  no  one 
to  make  objections.  And  so  when,  as  I  say, 
we  were  at  the  four  corners  for  the  necessa 
ries  of  life,  he  asked  Clementine's  permission 
to  ask  me  to  marry  him. 

"  I  give  you  my  word,  Louise,  I  had  for 
gotten  there  was  such  a  thing  as  marriage  in 
the  world  for  me !  I  had  forgotten  it  as  com 
pletely  as  the  chronology  of  the  Merovingian 


48  BALCONY    STORIES 

dynasty,  alas!  with  all  the  other  school  things 
forgotten.  And  I  do  not  believe  Clementine 
remembered  there  was  such  a  possibility  in 
the  world  for  me.  Mon  Dieu  !  when  a  girl 
is  poor  she  may  have  all  the  beauty  in  the 
world  —  not  that  I  had  beauty,  only  a  little 
prettiness.  But  you  should  have  seen  Clem 
entine  !  She  screamed  for  joy  when  she  told 
me.  Oh,  there  was  but  one  answer  accord 
ing  to  her,  and  according  to  everybody  she 
could  consult,  in  her  haste.  They  all  said  it 
was  a  dispensation  of  Providence  in  my  favor. 
He  was  young,  he  was  strong ;  he  did  not 
make  a  fortune,  it  was  true,  but  he  made  a 
good  living.  And  what  an  assistance  to  have 
a  man  in  the  family  ! — an  assistance  for  Clem 
entine  and  the  children.  But  the  principal 
thing,  after  all,  was,  he  wanted  to  marry  me. 
Nobody  had  ever  wanted  that  before,  my 
dear ! 

"  Quick,  quick,  it  was  all  arranged.  All 
my  friends  did  something  for  me.  One  made 
my  peignoirs  for  me,  one  this,  one  that — ma 
foi!  I  did  not  recognize  myself.  One  made 
all  the  toilet  of  the  bureau,  another  of  the 
bed,  and  we  all  sewed  on  the  wedding-dress 
together.  And  you  should  have  seen  Clem- 


MIMFS    MARRIAGE  49 

entine,  going  out  in  all  her  great  mourning, 
looking  for  a  house,  looking  for  a  servant ! 
But  the  wedding  was  private  on  account  of 
poor  papa.  But  you  know,  Loulou,  I  had 
never  time  to  think,  except  about  Clementine 
and  the  children,  and  when  I  thought  of  all 
those  poor  little  children,  poor  papa's  chil 
dren,  I  said  '  Quick,  quick,'  like  the  rest. 

"  It  was  the  next  day,  the  morning  after 
the  wedding,  I  had  time  to  think.  I  was 
sitting  here,  just  as  you  see  me  now,  in  my 
pretty  new  negligee.  I  had  been  looking  at 
all  the  pretty  presents  I  have  shown  you,  and 
my  trousseau,  and  my  furniture, —  it  is  not 
bad,  as  you  see, —  my  dress,  my  veil,  my 
ring,  and  —  I  do  not  know  —  I  do  not  know 
—  but,  all  of  a  sudden,  from  everywhere 
came  the  thought  of  my  brun,  my  handsome 
brun  with  the  mustache,  and  the  bonne  aven- 
ture,  riche,  avenant,  the  Jules,  Raoul,  Guy, 
and  the  flower  leaves,  and  *  il  m  aime,  un  peu> 
beaucoup,  pas  du  tout'  passionnement,  and 
the  way  I  expected  to  meet  him  walking 
to  and  from  school,  walking  as  if  I  were 
dancing  the  steps,  and  oh,  my  plans,  my 
plans,  my  plans, —  silk  dresses,  theater,  voy 
ages  to  Europe, —  and  poor  papa,  so  fine,  so 


50  BALCONY    STORIES 

tall,  so  aristocratic.  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
it  all  came;  it  seized  my  heart,  and,  mon 
Dieu !  I  cried  out,  and  I  wept,  I  wept,  I 
wept.  How  I  wept !  It  pains  me  here  now 
to  remember  it.  Hours,  hours  it  lasted,  un 
til  I  had  no  tears  in  my  body,  and  I  had  to 
weep  without  them,  with  sobs  and  moans. 
But  this,  I  have  always  observed,  is  the  time 
for  reflection  —  after  the  tears  are  all  out. 
And  I  am  sure  God  himself  gave  me  my 
thoughts.  '  Poor  little  Mimi ! '  I  thought, 
'fi  done!  You  are  going  to  make  a  fool  of 
yourself  now  when  it  is  all  over,  because 
why  ?  It  is  God  who  manages  the  world, 
and  not  you.  You  pray  to  God  to  help  you 
in  your  despair,  and  he  has  helped  you.  He 
has  sent  you  a  good,  kind  husband  who 
adores  you ;  who  asks  only  to  be  a  brother 
to  your  sisters  and  brothers,  and  son  to 
Clementine ;  who  has  given  you  more  than 
you  ever  possessed  in  your  life  —  but  because 
he  did  not  come  out  of  the  bonne  aventure  — 
and  who  gets  a  husband  out  of  the  bonne 
aventuref  —  and  would  your  brun  have  come 
to  you  in  your  misfortune  ? '  I  am  sure  God 
inspired  those  thoughts  in  me. 

"I   tell  you,  I   rose  from  that  bed  — natu- 


MIMI'S    MARRIAGE  53 

rally  I  had  thrown  myself  upon  it.  Quick  I 
washed  my  face,  I  brushed  my  hair,  and,  you 
see  these  bows  of  ribbons, —  look,  here  are 
the  marks  of  the  tears, — I  turned  them.  Hey 
Loulou,  it  occurs  to  me,  that  if  you  examined 
the  blue  bows  on  a  bride's  negligee,  you 
might  always  find  tears  on  the  other  side ; 
for  do  they  not  all  have  to  marry  whom  God 
sends  ?  and  am  I  the  only  one  who  had 
dreams?  It  is  the  end  of  dreams,  marriage; 
and  that  is  the  good  thing  about  it.  God 
lets  us  dream  to  keep  us  quiet,  but  he  knows 
when  to  wake  us  up,  I  tell  you.  The  blue 
bows  knew !  And  now,  you  see,  I  prefer  my 
husband  to  my  brun;  in  fact,  Loulou,  I  adore 
him,  and  I  am  furiously  jealous  about  him. 
And  he  is  so  good  to  Clementine  and  the 
poor  little  children ;  and  see  his  photograph 
—  a  blond,  and  not  good-looking,  and  small ! 
"  But  poor  papa !  If  he  had  been  alive,  I 
am  sure  he  never  would  have  agreed  with 
God  about  my  marriage." 


THE   MIRACLE   CHAPEL 


THE    MIRACLE    CHAPEL 

T^VERY  heart  has  a  miracle  to  pray  for. 
_L/  Every  life  holds  that  which  only  a  mira 
cle  can  cure.  To  prove  that  there  have  never 
been,  that  there  can  never  be,  miracles  does 
not  alter  the  matter.  So  long  as  there  is 
something  hoped  for, — that  does  not  come  in 
the  legitimate  channel  of  possible  events,— 
so  long  as  something  does  come  not  to  be 
hoped  or  expected  in  the  legitimate  channel 
of  possible  events,  just  so  long  will  the  mira 
cle  be  prayed  for. 

The  rich  and  the  prosperous,  it  would 
seem,  do  not  depend  upon  God  so  much,  do 
not  need  miracles,  as  the  poor  do.  They  do 
not  have  to  pray  for  the  extra  crust  when 
starvation  hovers  near;  for  the  softening  of 
an  obdurate  landlord's  heart ;  for  strength  in 
temptation,  light  in  darkness,  salvation  from 
vice ;  for  a  friend  in  friendlessness ;  for  that 
miracle  of  miracles,  an  opportunity  to  strug- 

57 


58  BALCONY    STORIES 

gling  ambition  ;  for  the  ending  of  a  dark 
night,  the  breaking  of  day;  and,  oh!  for  God's 
own  miracle  to  the  bedside-watchers  —  the 
change  for  the  better,  when  death  is  there 
and  the  apothecary's  skill  too  far,  far  away. 
The  poor,  the  miserable,  the  unhappy,  they 
can  show  their  miracles  by  the  score ;  that  is 
why  God  is  called  the  poor  man's  friend.  He 
does  not  mind,  so  they  say,  going  in  the  face 
of  logic  and  reason  to  relieve  them ;  for  often 
the  kind  and  charitable  are  sadly  hampered 
by  the  fetters  of  logic  and  reason,  which 
hold  them,  as  it  were,  away  from  their  own 
benevolence. 

But  the  rich  have  their  miracles,  no  doubt, 
even  in  that  beautiful  empyrean  of  moneyed 
ease  in  which  the  poor  place  them.  Their 
money  cannot  buy  all  they  enjoy,  and  God 
knows  how  much  of  their  sorrow  it  assuages. 
As  it  is,  one  hears  now  and  then  of  accidents 
among  them,  conversions  to  better  thoughts, 
warding  off  of  danger,  rescue  of  life ;  and 
heirs  are  sometimes  born,  and  husbands  pro 
vided,  and  fortunes  saved,  in  such  surprising 
ways,  that  even  the  rich,  feeling  their  limi 
tations  in  spite  of  their  money,  must  ascribe 
it  privately  if  not  publicly  to  other  potencies 


THE    MIRACLE    CHAPEL  59 

than  their  own.  These  cathedral  tours  de 
force,  however,  do  not,  if  the  truth  be  told, 
convince  like  the  miracles  of  the  obscure  lit 
tle  chapel. 

There  is  always  a  more  and  a  most  obscure 
little  miracle  chapel,  and  as  faith  seems  ever 
to  lead  unhesitatingly  to  the  latter  one,  there 
is  ever  rising  out  of  humility  and  obscurity, 
as  in  response  to  a  demand,  some  new  shrine, 
to  replace  the  wear  and  tear  and  loss  of  other 
shrines  by  prosperity.  For,  alas  !  it  is  hard 
even  for  a  chapel  to  remain  obscure  and 
humble  in  the  face  of  prosperity  and  popu 
larity.  And  how  to  prevent  such  popularity 
and  prosperity  ?  As  soon  as  the  noise  of  a 
real  miracle  in  it  gets  abroad,  every  one  is 
for  hurrying  thither  at  once  with  their  needs 
and  their  prayers,  their  candles  and  their  pic 
ayunes  ;  and  the  little  miracle  chapel,  per 
haps  despite  itself,  becomes  with  mushroom 
growth  a  church,  and  the  church  a  cathedral, 
from  whose  resplendent  altars  the  cheap, 
humble  ex-voto  tablets,  the  modest  begin 
nings  of  its  ecclesiastical  fortunes,  are  before 
long  banished  to  dimly  lighted  lateral  shrines. 

The  miracle  chapel  in  question  lay  at  the 
end  of  a  very  confusing  but  still  intelligible 


60  BALCONY    STORIES 

route.  It  is  not  in  truth  a  chapel  at  all,  but 
a  consecrated  chamber  in  a  very  small,  very 
lowly  cottage,  which  stands,  or  one  might 
•appropriately,  if  not  with  absolute  novelty, 
say  which  kneels,  in  the  center  of  a  large 
garden,  a  garden  primeval  in  rusticity  and 
size,  its  limits  being  defined  by  no  lesser 
boundaries  than  the  four  intersecting  streets 
outside,  and  its  culture  showing  only  the  care 
less,  shiftless  culture  of  nature.  The  streets 
outside  were  miracles  themselves  in  that,  with 
their  liquid  contents,  they  were  streets  and  not 
bayous.  However,  they  protected  their  island 
chapel  almost  as  well  as  a  six-foot  moat  could 
have  done.  There  was  a  small  paved  space  on 
the  sidewalk  that  served  to  the  pedestrian  as 
an  indication  of  the  spot  in  the  tall,  long,  broad 
fence  where  a  gate  might  be  sought.  It  was 
a  small  gate  with  a  strong  latch.  It  required 
a  strong  hand  to  open  it.  At  the  sound  of 
the  click  it  made,  the  little  street  ragamuffin, 
who  stood  near,  peeping  through  the  fence, 
looked  up.  He  had  worked  quite  a  hole  be 
tween  the  boards  with  his  fingers.  Such  an 
anxious  expression  passed  over  his  face  that 
even  a  casual  passer-by  could  not  help  reliev 
ing  it  by  a  question — any  question: 


THE    MIRACLE   CHAPEL  61 

"  Is  this  the  miracle  chapel,  little  boy?" 

"  Yes,  ma'am  ;  yes."  Then  his  expression 
changed  to  one  of  eagerness,  yet  hardly  less 
anxious. 

"  Here.     Take  this  — " 

He  did  not  hold  out  his  hand,  the  coin  had 
to  seek  it.  At  its  touch  he  refused  to  take  it. 

"  I  ain't  begging." 

"What  are  you  looking  at  so  through  the 
fence?"  He  was  all  sadness  now. 

"Just  looking." 

"Is  there  anything  to  see  inside?" 

He  did  not  answer.  The  interrogation 
was  repeated. 

"I  can't  see  nothing.  I  'm  blind,"  putting 
his  eyes  again  to  the  hole,  first  one,  then  the 
other. 

"Come,  won't  you  tell  me  how  this  came 
to  be  a  miracle  chapel?" 

"Oh,  ma'am," — he  turned  his  face  from 
the  fence,  and  clasped  his  hands  in  excite 
ment, —  "it  was  a  poor  widow  woman  who 
come  here  with  her  baby  that  was  a-dying, 
and  she  prayed  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  the 
Virgin  Mary  made  the  baby  live  — " 

He  dropped  his  voice,  the  words  falling 
slower  and  slower.  As  he  raised  his  face,  one 


62  BALCONY    STORIES 

could  see  then  that  he  was  blind,  and  the 
accident  that  had  happened  to  him,  in  ford 
ing  the  street.  What  sightless  eyes  !  What 
a  wet,  muddy  little  skeleton  !  Ten  ?  No ; 
hardly  ten  years  of  age. 

"The  widow  woman  she  picked  up  her 
baby,  and  she  run  down  the  walk  here,  and 
out  into  the  street  screaming  —  she  was  so 
glad," — putting  his  eyes  to  the  peep-hole 
again, —  "and  the  Virgin  Mary  come  down 
the  walk  after  her,  and  come  through  the 
gate,  too ;  and  that  was  all  she  seed  —  the 
widow  woman." 

"  Did  you  know  the  widow  woman  ? " 

He  shook  his  head. 

"How  do  you  know  it?" 

"That  was  what  they  told  me.  And  they 
told  me,  the  birds  all  begun  to  sing  at  once, 
and  the  flowers  all  lighted  up  like  the  sun 
was  shining  on  them.  They  seed  her.  And 
she  come  down  the  walk,  and  through  the 
gate,"  his  voice  lowering  again  to  «a  whisper. 

Ay,  how  the  birds  must  have  sung,  and  the 
flowers  shone,  to  the  widowed  mother  as  she 
ran,  nay,  leaped,  down  that  rose-hedged  walk, 
with  her  restored  baby  clasped  to  her  bosom ! 

"  77iey  seed  her,"  repeated  the  little  fellow. 


THE    MIRACLE    CHAPEL  63 

"  And  that  is  why  you  stand  here  —  to  see 
her,  too?" 

His  shoulder  turned  uneasily  in  the  clasp 
upon  it. 

"They  seed  her,  and  they  ain't  got  no 
eyes." 

"Have  you  no  mother?" 

"Ain't  never  had  no  mother."  A  thought 
struck  him.  "Would  that  count,  ma'am? 
Would  that  count  ?  The  little  baby  that  was 
dying  —  yes,  ma'am,  it  had  a  mother;  and 
it  's  the  mothers  that  come  here  constant 
with  their  children;  I  sometimes  hear  'em 
dragging  them  in  by  the  hand." 

"  How  long  have  you  been  coming  here  ?  " 

"  Ever  since  the  first  time  I  heard  it, 
ma'am." 

Street  ragamuffins  do  not  cry :  it  would  be 
better  if  they  did  so,  when  they  are  so  young 
and  so  blind;  it  would  be  easier  for  the  spec 
tator,  the  auditor. 

"They  seed  her  —  I  might  see  her  ef — ef 
I  could  see  her  once  —  ef — ef  I  could  see 
anything  once."  His  voice  faltered;  but  he 
stiffened  it  instantly.  "  She  might  see  me. 
She  can't  pass  through  this  gate  without  see 
ing  me;  and — and  —  ef  she  seed  me  —  and 


64  BALCONY    STORIES 

I  did  n't  even  see  her  —  oh,  I  'm  so  tired  of 
being  blind  !  " 

"Did  you  never  go  inside  to  pray?" 
How  embarrassing  such  a  question  is,  even 
to  a  child  ! 

"No,  ma'am.  Does  that  count,  too?  The 
little  baby  did  n't  pray,  the  flowers  did  n't 
go  inside,  nor  the  birds.  And  they  say  the 
birds  broke  out  singing  all  at  once,  and  the 
flowers  shined,  like  the  sun  was  shining  on 
'em  —  like  the  sun  was  shining  in  'em,"  he 
corrected  himself.  "  The  birds  they  can  see, 
and  the  flowers  they  can't  see,  and  they  seed 
her."  He  shivered  with  the  damp  cold  — 
and  perhaps  too  with  hunger. 

"Where  do  you  live?" 

He  would  n't  answer. 

"What  do  you  live  on?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  Come  with  me."  He  could  not  resist 
the  grasp  on  his  shoulder,  and  the  firm  di 
recting  of  his  bare,  muddy  feet  through  the 
gate,  up  the  walk,  and  into  the  chamber  which 
the  Virgin  found  that  day.  He  was  turned  to 
the  altar,  and  pressed  down  on  his  knees. 

One  should  not  look  at  the  face  of  a  blind 
child  praying  to  the  Virgin  for  sight.  Only 


THE    MIRACLE    CHAPEL  65 

the  Virgin  herself  should  see  that  —  and  if 
she  once  saw  that  little  boy  !  There  were 
hearts,  feet,  hands,  and  eyes  enough  hang 
ing  around  to  warrant  hope  at  least,  if  not 
faith ;  the  effigies  of  the  human  aches  and 
pains  that  had  here  found  relief,  if  not  sur 
cease  ;  feet  and  hands  beholden  to  no  physi 
cian  for  their  exorcism  of  rheumatism ;  eyes 
and  ears  indebted  to  no  oculist  or  aurist ; 
and  the  hearts, —  they  are  always  in  ex 
cess, —  and,  to  the  most  skeptical,  there  is 
something  sweetly  comforting  in  the  sight 
of  so  many  cured  hearts,  with  their  thanks 
cut  deep,  as  they  should  be,  in  the  very 
marble  thereof.  Where  the  bed  must  have 
stood  was  the  altar,  rising  by  easy  grada 
tions,  brave  in  ecclesiastical  deckings,  to  the 
plaster  figure  of  her  whom  those  yearning 
hearts  were  seeing,  whom  those  murmuring 
lips  were  addressing.  Hearts  must  be  all 
alike  to  her  at  such  a  distance,  but  the  faces 
to  the  looker-on  were  so  different.  The 
eyes  straining  to  look  through  all  the  expe 
riences  and  troubles  that  their  life  has  held 
to  plead,  as  only  eyes  can  plead,  to  one  who 
can,  if  she  will,  perform  their  miracle  for 
them.  And  the  mouths, —  the  sensitive  hu- 


66  BALCONY    STORIES 

man  mouths, —  each  one  distorted  by  the 
tragedy  against  which  it  was  praying. 

Their  miracles  !  their  miracles  !  what  trifles 
to  divinity  !  Perhaps  hardly  more  to  human 
ity!  How  far  a  simple  looker-on  could  sup 
ply  them  if  so  minded !  Perhaps  a  liberal 
exercise  of  love  and  charity  by  not  more 
than  half  a  dozen  well-to-do  people  could 
answer  every  prayer  in  the  room  !  But  what 
a  miracle  that  would  be,  and  how  the  Virgin's 
heart  would  gladden  thereat,  and  jubilate  over 
her  restored  heart-dying  children,  even  as  the 
widowed  mother  did  over  her  one  dying  babe  ! 

And  the  little  boy  had  stopped  praying. 
The  futility  of  it  —  perhaps  his  own  impo 
tence —  had  overcome  him.  He  was  crying, 
and  past  the  shame  of  showing  it  —  crying 
helplessly,  hopelessly.  Tears  were  rolling 
out  of  his  sightless  eyes  over  his  wordless 
lips.  He  could  not  pray  ;  he  could  only  cry. 
What  better,  after  all,  can  any  of  us  do  ?  But 
what  a  prayer  to  a  woman — to  even  the 
plaster  figure  of  a  woman  !  And  the  Virgin 
did  hear  him ;  for  she  had  him  taken  without 
loss  of  a  moment  to  the  hospital,  and  how 
easy  she  made  it  for  the  physician  to  remove 
the  disability  !  To  her  be  the  credit. 


THE   STORY    OF   A   DAY 


THE    STORY   OF   A    DAY 

IT  is  really  not  much,  the  story;  it  is  only 
the  arrangement  of  it,  as  we  would  say 
of  our  dresses  and  our  drawing-rooms. 

It  began  with  the  dawn,  of  course;  and  the 
skiff  for  our  voyage,  silvered  with  dew,  wait 
ing  in  the  mist  for  us,  as  if  it  had  floated 
down  in  a  cloud  from  heaven  to  the  bayou. 
When  repeated,  this  sounds  like  poor  poetry; 
but  that  is  the  way  one  thinks  at  daydawn, 
when  the  dew  is  yet,  as  it  were,  upon  our 
brains,  and  our  ideas  are  still  half  dreams, 
and  our  waking  hearts,  alas !  as  innocent  as 
waking  babies  playing  with  their  toes. 

Our  oars  waked  the  waters  of  the  bayou,  as 
motionless  as  a  sleeping  snake  under  its  misty 
covert — to  continue  the  poetical  language 
or  thought.  The  ripples  ran  frightened  and 
shivering  into  the  rooty  thicknesses  of  the 
sedge-grown  banks,  startling  the  little  birds 
bathing  there  into  darting  to  the  nearest, 

5*  69 


70  BALCONY    STORIES 

highest  rush-top,  where,  without  losing  their 
hold  on  their  swaying,  balancing  perches, 
they  burst  into  all  sorts  of  incoherent  songs, 
in  their  excitement  to  divert  attention  from 
the  near-hidden  nests:  bird  mothers  are  so 
much  like  women  mothers ! 

It  soon  became  day  enough  for  the  mist  to 
rise.  The  eyes  that  saw  it  ought  to  be  able 
to  speak  to  tell  fittingly  about  it. 

Not  all  at  once,  nor  all  together,  but  a 
thinning,  a  lifting,  a  breaking,  a  wearing 
away;  a  little  withdrawing  here,  a  little  with 
drawing  there ;  and  now  a  peep,  and  now 
a  peep  ;  a  bride  lifting  her  veil  to  her  hus 
band!  Blue!  White!  Lilies!  Blue  lilies! 
White  lilies!  Blue  and  white  lilies!  And 
still  blue  and  white  lilies!  And  still!  And 
still!  Wherever  the  veil  lifted,  still  and  always 
the  bride! 

Not  in  clumps  and  bunches,  not  in  spots 
and  patches,  not  in  banks,  meadows,  acres, 
but  in  —  yes;  for  still  it  lifted  beyond  and  be 
yond  and  beyond;  the  eye  could  not  touch 
the  limit  of  them,  for  the  eye  can  touch  only 
the  limit  of  vision;  and  the  lilies  filled  the 
whole  sea-marsh,  for  that  is  the  way  spring 
comes  to  the  sea-marshes. 


THE    STORY    OF    A    DAY  71 

The  sedge-roots  might  have  been  unsightly 
along  the  water's  edge,  but  there  were  morn 
ing-glories,  all  colors,  all  shades — oh,  such 
morning-glories  as  we  of  the  city  never  see! 
Our  city  morning-glories  must  dream  of 
them,  as  we  dream  of  angels.  Only  God 
could  be  so  lavish!  Dropping  from  the  tall 
spear-heads  to  the  water,  into  the  water, 
under  the  water.  And  then,  the  reflection 
of  them,  in  all  their  colors,  blue,  white,  pink, 
purple,  red,  rose,  violet ! 

To  think  of  an  obscure  little  Acadian  bayou 
waking  to  flow  the  first  thing  in  the  morning 
not  only  through  banks  of  new-blown  morn 
ing-glories,  but  sown  also  to  its  depths  with 
such  reflections  as  must  make  it  think  itself 
a  bayou  in  heaven,  instead  of  in  Paroisse  St. 
Martin.  Perhaps  that  is  the  reason  the  poor 
poets  think  themselves  poets,  on  account  of 
the  beautiful  things  that  are  only  reflected 
into  their  minds  from  what  is  above?  Be 
sides  the  reflections,  there  were  alligators  in 
the  bayou,  trying  to  slip  away  before  we 
could  see  them,  and  watching  us  with  their 
stupid,  senile  eyes,  sometimes  from  under  the 
thickest,  prettiest  flowery  bowers;  and  turtles 
splashing  into  the  water  ahead  of  us ;  and 


72  BALCONY    STORIES 

fish  (silver-sided  perch),  looking  like  reflec 
tions  themselves,  floating  through  the  flower 
reflections,  nibbling  their  breakfast. 

Our  bayou  had  been  running  through 
swamp  only  a  little  more  solid  than  itself;  in 
fact,  there  was  no  solidity  but  what  came  from 
the  roots  of  grasses.  Now,  the  banks  began 
to  get  firmer,  from  real  soil  in  them.  We 
could  see  cattle  in  the  distance,  up  to  their 
necks  in  the  lilies,  their  heads  and  sharp- 
pointed  horns  coming  up  and  going  down  in 
the  blue  and  white.  Nothing  makes  cattle's 
heads  appear  handsomer,  with  the  sun  just  ris 
ing  far,  far  away  on  the  other  side  of  them.  The 
sea-marsh  cattle  turned  loose  to  pasture  in  the 
lush  spring  beauty — turned  loose  in  Elysium! 

But  the  land  was  only  partly  land  yet,  and 
the  cattle  still  cattle  to  us.  The  rising  sun 
made  revelations,  as  our  bayou  carried  us 
through  a  drove  in  their  Elysium,  or  it  might 
have  always  been  an  Elysium  to  us.  It  was 
not  all  pasturage,  all  enjoyment.  The  rising 
and  falling  feeding  head  was  entirely  different, 
as  we  could  now  see,  from  the  rising  and  fall 
ing  agonized  head  of  the  bogged — the  buried 
alive.  It  is  well  that  the  lilies  grow  taller 
and  thicker  over  the  more  treacherous  places  ; 


THE    STORY    OF    A   DAY  73 

but,  misery  !  misery  !  not  much  of  the  process 
was  concealed  from  us,  for  the  cattle  have  to 
come  to  the  bayou  for  water.  Such  a  splendid 
black  head  that  had  just  yielded  breath!  The 
wide-spreading  ebony  horns  thrown  back 
among  the  morning-glories,  the  mouth  open 
from  the  last  sigh,  the  glassy  eyes  staring 
straight  at  the  beautiful  blue  sky  above, 
where  a  ghostly  moon  still  lingered,  the  velvet 
neck  ridged  with  veins  and  muscles,  the  body 
already  buried  in  black  ooze.  And  such  a 
pretty  red-and-white-spotted  heifer,  lying  on 
her  side,  opening  and  shutting  her  eyes, 
breathing  softly  in  meek  resignation  to  her 
horrible  calamity  !  And,  again,  another  one 
was  plunging  and  battling  in  the  act  of  real 
izing  her  doom :  a  fierce,  furious,  red  cow, 
glaring  and  bellowing  at  the  soft,  yielding 
inexorable  abysm  under  her,  the  bustards  set 
tling  afar  off,  and  her  own  species  browsing 
securely  just  out  of  reach. 

They  understand  that  much,  the  sea-marsh 
cattle,  to  keep  out  of  reach  of  the  dead  com 
batant.  In  the  delirium  of  anguish,  relief 
cannot  be  distinguished  from  attack,  and 
rescue  of  the  victim  has  been  proved  to  mean 
goring  of  the  rescuer. 


74  BALCONY    STORIES 

The  bayou  turned  from  it  at  last,  from  our 
beautiful  lily  world  about  which  our  pleasant 
thoughts  had  ceased  to  flow  even  in  bad 
poetry. 

Our  voyage  was  for  information,  which 
might  be  obtained  at  a  certain  habitation  ;  if 
not  there,  at  a  second  one,  or  surely  at  a  third 
and  most  distant  settlement. 

The  bayou  narrowed  into  a  canal,  then  wid 
ened  into  a  bayou  again,  and  the  low,  level 
swamp  and  prairie  advanced  into  woodland 
and  forest.  Oak-trees  began,  our  beautiful 
oak-trees  !  Great  branches  bent  down  almost 
to  the  water, — quite  even  with  high  water, — 
covered  with  forests  of  oak,  parasites,  lichens, 
and  with  vines  that  swept  our  heads  as  we 
passed  under  them,  drooping  now  and  then 
to  trail  in  the  water,  a  plaything  for  the  fishes, 
and  a  landing-place  for  amphibious  insects. 
The  sun  speckled  the  water  with  its  flickering 
patterns,  showering  us  with  light  and  heat. 
We  have  no  spring  suns ;  our  sun,  even  in 
December,  is  a  summer  one. 

And  so,  with  all  its  grace  of  curve  and  bend, 
and  so  —  the  description  is  longer  than  the 
voyage  —  we  come  to  our  first  stopping-place. 
To  the  side,  in  front  of  the  well-kept  fertile 


THE    STORY    OF    A   DAY  75 

fields,  like  a  proud  little  showman,  stood  the 
little  house.  Its  pointed  shingle  roof  covered 
it  like  the  top  of  a  chafing-dish,  reaching 
down  to  the  windows,  which  peeped  out  from 
under  it  like  little  eyes. 

A  woman  came  out  of  the  door  to  meet  us. 
She  had  had  time  during  our  graceful  wind 
ing  approach  to  prepare  for  us.  What  an 
irrevocable  vow  to  old  maidenhood !  At 
least  twenty-five,  almost  a  possible  grand 
mother,  according  to  Acadian  computation, 
and  well  in  the  grip  of  advancing  years.  She 
was  dressed  in  a  stiff,  dark  red  calico  gown, 
with  a  white  apron.  Her  black  hair,  smooth 
and  glossy  under  a  varnish  of  grease,  was 
plaited  high  in  the  back,  and  dropped  regu 
lar  ringlets,  six  in  all,  over  her  forehead. 
That  was  the  epoch  when  her  calamity  came 
to  her,  when  the  hair  was  worn  in  that 
fashion.  A  woman  seldom  alters  her  coiffure 
after  a  calamity  of  a  certain  nature  happens 
to  her.  The  figure  had  taken  a  compact  rigid 
ity,  an  unfaltering  inflexibility,  all  the  world 
away  from  the  elasticity  of  matronhood;  and 
her  eyes  were  clear  and  fixed  like  her  figure, 
neither  falling,  nor  rising,  nor  puzzling  under 
other  eyes.  .  Her  lips,  her  hands,  her  slim 


76  BALCONY    STORIES 

feet,  were  conspicuously  single,  too,  in  their 
intent,  neither  reaching,  nor  feeling,  nor  run 
ning  for  those  other  lips,  hands,  and  feet 
which  should  have  doubled  their  single  life. 

That  was  Adorine  Merionaux,  otherwise 
the  most  industrious  Acadian  and  the  best 
cottonade-weaver  in  the  parish.  It  had  been 
short,  her  story.  A  woman's  love  is  still  with 
those  people  her  story.  She  was  thirteen 
when  she  met  him.  That  is  the  age  for  an 
Acadian  girl  to  meet  him,  because,  you  know, 
the  large  families — the  thirteen,  fourteen,  fif 
teen,  twenty  children — take  up  the  years;  and 
when  one  wishes  to  know  one's  great-great 
grandchildren  (which  is  the  dream  of  the  Aca 
dian  girl)  one  must  not  delay  one's  story. 

She  had  one  month  to  love  him  in,  and  in 
one  week  they  were  to  have  the  wedding. 
The  Acadians  believe  that  marriage  must 
come  au  point,  as  cooks  say  their  sauces 
must  be  served.  Standing  on  the  bayou- 
bank  in  front  of  the  Merionaux,  one  could  say 
"Good  day"  with  the  eyes  to  the  Zeverin 
Theriots — that  was  the  name  of  the  parents 
of  the  young  bridegroom.  Looking  under  the 
branches  of  the  oaks,  one  could  see  across 
the  prairie, — prairie  and  sea-marsh  it  was, — 


THE    STORY    OF    A   DAY  77 

and  clearly  distinguish  another  little  red- 
washed  house  like  the  Merionaux,  with  a 
painted  roof  hanging  over  the  windows,  and 
a  staircase  going  up  outside  to  the  garret. 
With  the  sun  shining  in  the  proper  direction, 
one  might  distinguish  more,  and  with  love 
shining  like  the  sun  in  the  eyes,  one  might 
see,  one  might  see — a  heart  full. 

It  was  only  the  eyes,  however,  which  could 
make  such  a  quick  voyage  to  the  Zeverin 
Theriots;  a  skiff  had  a  long  day's  journey 
to  reach  them.  The  bayou  sauntered  along 
over  the  country  like  a  negro  on  a  Sunday's 
pleasuring,  trusting  to  God  for  time,  and  to 
the  devil  for  means. 

Oh,  nothing  can  travel  quickly  over  a 
bayou  !  Ask  any  one  who  has  waited  on  a  I 
bayou-bank  for  a  physician  or  a  life-and- 
death  message.  Thought  refuses  to  travel 
and  turn  and  double  over  it;  thought,  like  the 
eye,  takes  the  shortest  cut — straight  over 
the  sea-marsh;  and  in  the  spring  of  the  year, 
when  the  lilies  are  in  bloom,  thought  could 
not  take  a  more  heavenly  way,  even  from 
beloved  to  beloved. 

It  was  the  week  before  marriage,  that 
week  when,  more  than  one's  whole  life  after- 


78  BALCONY    STORIES 

ward,  one's  heart  feels  most  longing — most 
—  well,  in  fact,  it  was  the  week  before  mar 
riage.  From  Sunday  to  Sunday,  that  was 
all  the  time  to  be  passed.  Adorine — women 
live  through  this  week  by  the  grace  of  God, 
or  perhaps  they  would  be  as  unreasonable  as 
the  men  —  Adorine  could  look  across  the 
prairie  to  the  little  red  roof  during  the  day, 
and  could  think  across  it  during  the  night, 
and  get  up  before  day  to  look  across  again  — 
longing,  longing  all  the  time.  Of  course 
one  must  supply  all  this  from  one's  own 
imagination  or  experience. 

But  Adorine  could  sing,  and  she  sang. 
One  might  hear,  in  a  favorable  wind,  a  gun 
shot,  or  the  barking  of  a  dog  from  one  place 
to  the  other,  so  that  singing,  as  to  effect,  was 
nothing  more  than  the  voicing  of  her  looking 
and  thinking  and  longing. 

When  one  loves,  it  is  as  if  everything  was 
known  of  and  seen  by  the  other;  not  only  all 
that  passes  in  the  head  and  heart,  which 
would  in  all  conscience  be  more  than  enough 
to  occupy  the  other,  but  the  talking,  the 
dressing,  the  conduct.  It  was  then  that  the 
back  hair  was  braided  and  the  front  curled 
more  and  more  beautifully  every  day,  and 


THE    STORY    OF    A   DAY  79 

that  the  calico  dresses  became  stiffer  and 
stiffen,  and  the  white  crochet  lace  collar 
broader  and  lower  in  the  neck.  At  thirteen 
she  was  beautiful  enough  to  startle  one,  they 
say,  but  that  was  nothing;  she  spent  time  and 
care  upon  these  things,  as  if,  like  other 
women,  her  fate  seriously  depended  upon 
them.  There  is  no  self-abnegation  like  that 
of  a  woman  in  love. 

It  was  her  singing,  however,  which  most 
showed  that  other  existence  in  her  existence. 
When  she  sang  at  her  spinning-wheel  or  her 
loom,  or  knelt  battling  clothes  on  the  bank 
of  the  bayou,  her  lips  would  kiss  out  the 
words,  and  the  tune  would  rise  and  fall  and 
tremble,  as  if  Zepherin  were  just  across  there, 
anywhere ;  in  fact,  as  if  every  blue  and  white 
lily  might  hide  an  ear  of  him. 

It  was  the  time  of  the  new  moon,  fortu 
nately,  when  all  sit  up  late  in  the  country. 
The  family  would  stop  in  their  talking  about 
the  wedding  to  listen  to  her.  She  did  not 
know  it  herself,  but  it — the  singing — was 
getting  louder  and  clearer,  and,  poor  little 
thing,  it  told  everything.  And  after  the 
family  went  to  bed  they  could  still  hear  her, 
sitting  on  the  bank  of  the  bayou,  or  up  in  her 


8o  BALCONY    STORIES 

window,  singing  and  looking  at  the  moon 
traveling  across  the  lily  prairie — for  all  its 
beauty  and  brightness  no  more  beautiful  and 
bright  than  a  heart  in  love. 

It  was  just  past  the  middle  of  the  week,  a 
Thursday  night.  The  moon  was  so  bright  the 
colors  of  the  lilies  could  be  seen,  and  the  sing 
ing,  so  sweet,  so  far-reaching  —  it  was  the 
essence  of  the  longing  of  love.  Then  it  was 
that  the  miracle  happened  to  her.  Miracles 
are  always  happening  to  the  Acadians.  She 
could  not  sleep,  she  could  not  stay  in  bed. 
Her  heart  drove  her  to  the  window,  and  kept 
her  there,  and — among  the  civilized  it  could 
not  take  place,  but  here  she  could  sing  as  she 
pleased  in  the  middle  of  the  night ;  it  was  no 
body's  affair,  nobody's  disturbance.  "  Saint 
Ann!  Saint  Joseph!  Saint  Mary!"  She  heard 
her  song  answered !  She  held  her  heart,  .she 
bent  forward,  she  sang  again.  Oh,  the  air 
was  full  of  music  !  It  was  all  music  !  She  fell 
on  her  knees  ;  she  listened,  looking  at  the 
moon  ;  and,  with  her  face  in  her  hands,  look 
ing  at  Zepherin.  It  was  God's  choir  of  angels, 
she  thought,  and  one  with  a  voice  like  Zeph 
erin!  Whenever  it  died  away  she  would  sing 
again,  and  again,  and  again  — 


"  HER  HEART  DROVE  HER  TO  THE  WINDOW." 


THE    STORY    OF   A   DAY  83 

But  the  sun  came,  and  the  sun  is  not  cre 
ated,  like  the  moon,  for  lovers,  and  whatever 
happened  in  the  night,  there  was  work  to  be 
done  in  the  clay.  Adorine  worked  like  one  in 
a  trance,  her  face  as  radiant  as  the  upturned 
face  of  a  saint.  They  did  not  know  what  it 
was,  or  rather  they  thought  it  was  love.  Love 
is  so  different  out  there,  they  make  all  kinds 
of  allowances  for  it.  But,  in  truth,  Adorine 
was  still  hearing  her  celestial  voices  or  voice. 
If  the  cackling  of  the  chickens,  the  whir  of  the 
spinning-wheel,  or  the  "bum  bum"  of  the 
loom  effaced  it  a  moment,  she  had  only  to  go 
to  some  still  place,  round  her  hand  over  her 
ear,  and  give  the  line  of  a  song,  and — it  was 
Zepherin  —  Zepherin  she  heard. 

She  walked  in  a  dream  until  night.  When 
the  moon  came  up  she  was  at  the  window, 
and  still  it  continued,  so  faint,  so  sweet,  that 
answer  to  her  song.  Echo  never  did  anything 
more  exquisite,  but  she  knew  nothing  of  such 
a  heathen  as  Echo.  Human  nature  became 
exhausted.  She  fell  asleep  where  she  was,  in 
the  window,  and  dreamed  as  only  a  bride  can 
dream  of  her  groom.  When  she  awoke, 
"  Adorine  !  Adorine  !  "  the  beautiful  angel 
voices  called  to  her  ;  "  Zepherin  !  Zepherin  !  " 


84  BALCONY    STORIES 

she  answered,  as  if  she,  too,  were  an  angel, 
signaling  another  angel  in  heaven.  It  was 
too  much.  She  wept,  and  that  broke  the 
charm.  She  could  hear  nothing  more  after 
that.  All  that  day  was  despondency,  dejec 
tion,  tear-bedewed  eyes,  and  tremulous  lips, 
the  commonplace  reaction,  as  all  know,  of 
love  exaltation.  Adorine's  family,  Acadian 
peasants  though  they  were,  knew  as  much 
about  it  as  any  one  else,  and  all  that  any  one 
knows  about  it  is  that  marriage  is  the  cure- 
all,  and  the  only  cure-all,  for  love. 

And  Zepherin  ?  A  man  could  better  de 
scribe  his  side  of  that  week ;  for  it,  too,  has 
mostly  to  be  described  from  imagination  or 
experience.  What  is  inferred  is  that  what 
Adorine  longed  and  thought  and  looked  in 
silence  and  resignation,  according  to  woman's 
way,  he  suffered  equally,  but  in  a  man's  way, 
which  is  not  one  of  silence  or  resignation, — at 
least  when  one  is  a  man  of  eighteen, — the  last 
interview,  the  near  wedding,  her  beauty,  his 
love,  her  house  in  sight,  the  full  moon,  the 
long,  wakeful  nights. 

He  took  his  pirogue;  but  the  bayou  played 
with  his  impatience,  maddened  his  passion, 
bringing  him  so  near,  to  meander  with  him 


ALL    THAT    DAY    WAS    DESPONDENCY,    DEJECTION. 


\ 


THE    STORY    OF    A    DAY  87 

again  so  far  away.  There  was  only  a  short 

prairie  between  him  and ,  a  prairie  thick 

with  lily-roots — one  could  almost  walk  over 
their  heads,  so  close,  and  gleaming  in  the 
moonlight.  But  this  is  all  only  inference. 

The  pirogue  was  found  tethered  to  the 
paddle  stuck  upright  in  the  soft  bank,  and — 
Adorine's  parents  related  the  rest.  Nothing 
else  was  found  until  the  summer  drought  had 
bared  the  swamp. 

There  was  a  little  girl  in  the  house  when 
we  arrived — all  else  were  in  the  field — a 
stupid,  solemn,  pretty  child,  the  child  of  a 
brother.  How  she  kept  away  from  Adorine, 
and  how  much  that  testified ! 

It  would  have  been  too  painful.  The  little 
arms  around  her  neck,  the  head  nestling  to 
her  bosom,  sleepily  pressing  against  it.  And 
the  little  one  might  ask  to  be  sung  to  sleep. 
Sung  to  sleep ! 

The  little  bed-chamber,  with  its  high  mat- 
tressed  bed,  covered  with  the  Acadian  home 
spun  quilt,  trimmed  with  netting  fringe,  its 
bit  of  mirror  over  the  bureau,  the  bottle  of 
perfumed  grease  to  keep  the  locks  black  and 
glossy,  the  prayer-beads  and  blessed  palms 
hanging  on  the  wall,  the  low,  black  polished 


88  BALCONY    STORIES 

spinning-wheel,  the  loom, — the  metier  d' A  do- 
rine  famed  throughout  the  parish, — the  ever 
goodly  store  of  cotton  and  yarn  hanks  swing 
ing  from  the  ceiling,  and  the  little  square, 
open  window  which  looked  under  the  mossy 
oak-branches  to  look  over  the  prairie ;  and 
once  again  all  blue  and  white  lilies — they 
were  all  there,  as  Adorine  was  there ;  but 
there  was  more  —  not  there. 


ANNE  MARIE  AND  JEANNE  MARIE 


ANNE  MARIE  AND   JEANNE   MARIE 

OLD  Jeanne  Marie  leaned  her  hand  against 
the  house,  and  the  tears  rolled  down 
her  cheeks.  She  had  not  wept  since  she 
buried  her  last  child.  With  her  it  was  one 
trouble,  one  weeping,  no  more  ;  and  her 
wrinkled,  hard,  polished  skin  so  far  had 
known  only  the  tears  that  come  after  death. 
The  trouble  in  her  heart  now  was  almost 
exactly  like  the  trouble  caused  by  death ; 
although  she  knew  it  was  not  so  bad  as  death, 
yet,  when  she  thought  of  this  to  console  her 
self,  the  tears  rolled  all  the  faster.  She  took 
the  end  of  the  red  cotton  kerchief  tied  over 
her  head,  and  wiped  them  away ;  for  the  fur 
rows  in  her  face  did  not  merely  run  up  and 
down  —  they  ran  in  all  directions,  and  carried 
her  tears  all  over  her  face  at  once.  She  could 
understand  death,  but  she  could  not  under 
stand  this. 

91 


92  BALCONY    STORIES 

It  came  about  in  this  way  :  Anne  Marie  and 
she  lived  in  the  little  red-washed  cabin  against 
which  she  leaned ;  had  lived  there  alone  with 
each  other  for  fifty  years,  ever  since  Jeanne 
Marie's  husband  had  died,  and  the  three  chil 
dren  after  him,  in  the  fever  epidemic. 

The  little  two-roomed  cabin,  the  stable 
where  there  used  to  be  a  cow,  the  patch  of 
ground  planted  with  onions,  had  all  been 
bought  and  paid  for  by  the  husband ;  for  he 
was  a  thrifty,  hard-working  Gascon,  and  had 
he  lived  there  would  not  have  been  one  bet 
ter  off,  or  with  a  larger  family,  either  in  that 
quarter  or  in  any  of  the  red-washed  suburbs 
with  which  Gascony  has  surrounded  New 
Orleans.  His  women,  however, — the  wife 
and  sister-in-law, — had  done  their  share  in 
the  work :  a  man's  share  apiece,  for  with  the 
Gascon  women  there  is  no  discrimination  o^ 
sex  when  it  comes  to  work. 

And  they  worked  on  just  the  same  after  he 
died,  tending  the  cow,  digging,  hoeing,  plant 
ing,  watering.  The  day  following  the  funeral, 
by  daylight  Jeanne  Marie  was  shouldering 
around  the  yoke  of  milk-cans  to  his  patrons, 
while  Anne  Marie  carried  the  vegetables  to 
market ;  and  so  on  for  fifty  years. 


ANNE   MARIE   AND    JEANNE    MARIE  93 

They  were  old  women  now, — seventy-five 
years  old, — and,  as  they  expressed  it,  they 
had  always  been  twins.  In  twins  there  is  al 
ways  one  lucky  and  one  unlucky  one :  Jeanne 
Marie  was  the  lucky  one,  Anne  Marie  the 
unlucky  one.  So  much  so,  that  it  was  even 
she  who  had  to  catch  the  rheumatism,  and  to 
lie  now  bedridden,  months  at  a  time,  while 
Jeanne  Marie  was  as  active  in  her  sabots  as 
she  had  ever  been. 

In  spite  of  the  age  of  both,  and  the  infir 
mity  of  one,  every  Saturday  night  there  was 
some  little  thing  to  put  under  the  brick  in  the 
hearth,  for  taxes  and  license,  and  the  never- 
to-be-forgotten  funeral  provision.  In  the  hus 
band's  time  gold  pieces  used  to  go  in,  but  they 
had  all  gone  to  pay  for  the  four  funerals  and 
the  quadrupled  doctor's  bill.  The  women 
laid  in  silver  pieces ;  the  coins,  however,  grew 
smaller  and  smaller,  and  represented  more 
and  more  not  so  much  the  gain  from  onions 
as  the  saving  from  food. 

It  had  been  explained  to  them  how  they 
might,  all  at  once,  make  a  year's  gain  in  the 
lottery ;  and  it  had  become  their  custom 
always,  at  the  end  of  every  month,  to  put 
aside  one  silver  coin  apiece,  to  buy  a  lottery 


94  BALCONY    STORIES 

ticket  with  —  one  ticket  each,  not  for  the 
great,  but  for  the  twenty-five-cent,  prizes. 
Anne  Marie  would  buy  hers  round  about  the 
market ;  Jeanne  Marie  would  stop  anywhere 
along  her  milk  course  and  buy  hers,  and  they 
would  go  together  in  the  afternoon  to  stand 
with  the  little  crowd  watching  the  placard 
upon  which  the  winning  numbers  were  to  be 
written.  And  when  they  were  written,  it  was 
curious,  Jeanne  Marie's  numbers  would  come 
out  twice  as  often  as  Anne  Marie's.  Not  that 
she  ever  won  anything,  for  she  was  not  lucky 
enough  to  have  them  come  out  in  the  order  to 
win ;  they  only  came  out  here  and  there, 
singly :  but  it  was  sufficient  to  make  old 
Anne  Marie  cross  and  ugly  for  a  day  or  two, 
and  injure  the  sale  of  the  onion-basket.  When 
she  became  bedridden,  Jeanne  Marie  bought 
the  ticket  for  both,  on  the  numbers,  however, 
that  Anne  Marie  gave  her;  and  Anne  Marie 
had  to  lie  in  bed  and  wait,  while  Jeanne  Marie 
went  out  to  watch  the  placard. 

One  evening,  watching  it,  Jeanne  Marie 
saw  the  ticket-agent  write  out  the  numbers  as 
they  came  on  her  ticket,  in  such  a  way  that 
they  drew  a  prize — forty  dollars. 


ANNE    MARIE   AND   JEANNE    MARIE  95 

When  the  old  woman  saw  it  she  felt  such 
a  happiness  ;  just  as  she  used  to  feel  in  the  old 
times  right  after  the  birth  of  a  baby.  She 
thought  of  that  instantly.  Without  saying  a 
word  to  any  one,  she  clattered  over  the  ban 
quette  as  fast  as  she  could  in  her  sabots,  to 
tell  the  good  news  to  Anne  Marie.  But  she 
did  not  go  so  fast  as  not  to  have  time  to  dis 
pose  of  her  forty  dollars  over  and  over  again. 
Forty  dollars!  That  was  a  great  deal  of 
money.  She  had  often  in  her  mind,  when 
she  was  expecting  a  prize,  spent  twenty 
dollars ;  for  she  had  never  thought  it  could 
be  more  than  that.  But  forty  dollars  !  A  new 
gown  apiece,  and  black  silk  kerchiefs  to  tie 
over  their  heads  instead  of  red  cotton,  and 
the  little  cabin  new  red-washed,  and  soup  in 
the  pot,  and  a  garlic  sausage,  and  a  bottle  of 
good,  costly  liniment  for  Anne  Marie's  legs ; 
and  still  a  pile  of  gold  to  go  under  the  hearth- 
brick —  a  pile  of  gold  that  would  have  made 
the  eyes  of  the  defunct  husband  glisten. 

She  pushed  open  the  picket-gate,  and  came 
into  the  room  where  her  sister  lay  in  bed. 

"  Eh,  Anne  Marie,  my  girl,"  she  called  in 
her  thick,  pebbly  voice,  apparently  made  pur- 


96  BALCONY    STORIES 

posely  to  suit  her  rough  Gascon  accent ;  "  this 
time  we  have  caught  it  !  " 

"Whose  ticket?"  asked  Anne  Marie,  in 
stantly. 

In  a  flash  all  Anne  Marie's  ill  luck  ran 
through  Jeanne  Marie's  mind  ;  how  her  prom 
ised  husband  had  proved  unfaithful,  and 
Jeanne  Marie's  faithful ;  and  how,  ever  since, 
even  to  the  coming  out  of  her  lottery  num 
bers,  even  to  the  selling  of  vegetables,  even 
to  the  catching  of  the  rheumatism,  she  had 
been  the  loser.  But  above  all,  as  she  looked 
at  Anne  Marie  in  the  bed,  all  the  misery  came 
over  Jeanne  Marie  of  her  sister's  not  bein^r 

J  o 

able,  in  all  her  poor  old  seventy-five  years 
of  life,  to  remember  the  pressure  of  the 
arms  of  a  husband  about  her  waist,  nor  the 
mouth  of  a  child  on  her  breast. 

As  soon  as  Anne  Marie  had  asked  her  ques 
tion,  Jeanne  Marie  answered  it. 
"  But  your  ticket,  Coton-Mai!  "  1 
"Where?     Give  it  here!     Give  it  here!" 
The  old  woman,   who  had  not  been  able  to 
move  her  back  for  weeks,  sat  bolt  upright  in 
bed,  and  stretched  out  her  great  bony  fingers, 

1  Coton-Ma'i  is  an  innocent  oath  invented  by  the  good,  pious  priest 
as  a  substitute  for  one  more  harmful. 


ANNE   MARIE   AND   JEANNE    MARIE  99 

with  the  long  nails  as  hard  and  black  as 
rake- prongs  from  groveling  in  the  earth. 

Jeanne  Marie  poured  the  money  out  of  her 
cotton  handkerchief  into  them. 

Anne  Marie  counted  it,  looked  at  it ; 
looked  at  it,  counted  it ;  and  if  she  had  not 
been  so  old,  so  infirm,  so  toothless,  the  smile 
that  passed  over  her  face  would  have  made  it 
beautiful. 

Jeanne  Marie  had  to  leave  her  to  draw 
water  from  the  well  to  water  the  plants,  and 
to  get  her  vegetables  ready  for  next  morning. 
She  felt  even  happier  now  than  if  she  had  just 
had  a  child,  happier  even  than  if  her  husband 
had  just  returned  to  her. 

«  111  luck  !  Coton-Mai!  Ill  luck  !  There  's 
a  way  to  turn  ill  luck !  "  And  her  smile  also 
should  have  beautified  her  face,  wrinkled  and 
ugly  though  it  was. 

She  did  not  think  any  more  of  the  spend 
ing  of  the  money,  only  of  the  pleasure  Anne 
Marie  would  take  in  spending  it. 

The  water  was  low  in  the  well,  and  there 
had  been  a  long  drought.  There  are  not 
many  old  women  of  seventy-five  who  could 
have  watered  so  much  ground  as  abundantly 
as  she  did ;  but  whenever  she  thought  of 


loo  BALCONY    STORIES 

the  forty  dollars  and  Anne  Marie's  smile 
she  would  give  the  thirsting"  plant  an  extra 
bucketful. 

The  twilight  was  gaining.  She  paused. 
"  Colon-Mat/  "  she  exclaimed  aloud.  "But 
I  must  see  the  old  woman  smile  again  over 
her  good  luck." 

Although  it  was  "  my  girl "  face  to  face,  it 
was  always  "the  old  woman"  behind  each 
other's  back. 

There  was  a  knot-hole  in  the  plank  walls 
of  the  house.  In  spite  of  Anne  Marie's  rheu 
matism  they  would  never  stop  it  up,  needing 
it,  they  said,  for  light  and  air.  Jeanne  Marie 
slipped  her  feet  out  of  her  sabots  and  crept 
easily  toward  it,  smiling,  and  saying  "  Colon- 
Mat  f  "  to  herself  all  the  way.  She  put  her 
eye  to  the  hole.  Anne  Marie  was  not  in  the 
bed,  she  who  had  not  left  her  bed  for  two 
months  !  Jeanne  Marie  looked  through  the 
dim  light  of  the  room  until  she  found  her. 

Anne  Marie,  in  her  short  petticoat  and 
nightsack,  with  bare  legs  and  feet,  was  on 
her  knees  in  the  corner,  pulling  up  a  plank, 
hiding — peasants  know  hiding  when  they  see 
it — hiding  her  money  away — away — away' 
from  whom? — muttering  to  herself  and  shak- 


ANNE    MARIE    AND    JEANNE   MARJE          101 


ing   her   old   grayhaired    head.      Hiding    her 
money  away  from  Jeanne  Marie ! 

And  this  was  why  Jeanne  Marie  leaned 
her  head  against  the  side  of  the  house  and 
wept.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  never 
known  her  twin  sister  at  all. 


A   CRIPPLED    HOPE 


A   CRIPPLED    HOPE 

YOU  must  picture  to  yourself  the  quiet, 
dim-lighted  room  of  a  convalescent ;  out 
side,  the  dreary,  bleak  days  of  winter  in  a 
sparsely  settled,  distant  country  parish  ;  in 
side,  a  slow,  smoldering  log-fire,  a  curtained 
bed,  the  infant  sleeping  well  enough,  the 
mother  wakeful,  restless,  thought-driven,  as 
a  mother  must  be,  unfortunately,  nowadays, 
particularly  in  that  parish,  where  cotton 
worms  and  overflows  have  acquired  such  a 
monopoly  of  one's  future. 

God  is  always  pretty  near  a  sick  woman's 
couch  ;  but  nearer  even  than  God  seems  the 
sick-nurse  —  at  least  in  that  part  of  the  coun 
try,  under  those  circumstances.  It  is  so  good 
to  look  through  the  dimness  and  uncertainty, 
moral  and  physical,  and  to  meet  those  little 
black,  steadfast,  all-seeing  eyes ;  to  feel  those 
smooth,  soft,  all-soothing  hands ;  to  hear, 
across  one's  sleep,  that  three-footed  step  — 


105 


io6  BALCONY    STORIES 

the  flat-soled  left  foot,  the  tiptoe  right,  and  the 
padded  end  of  the  broomstick  ;  and  when  one 
is  so  wakeful  and  restless  and  thought-driven, 
to  have  another's  story  given  one.  God,  de 
pend  upon  it,  grows  stories  and  lives  as  he 
does  herbs,  each  with  a  mission  of  balm  to 
some  woe. 

She  said  she  had,  and  in  truth  she  had, 
no  other  name  than  "little  Mammy";  and 
that  was  the  name  of  her  nature.  Pure 
African,  but  bronze  rather  than  pure  black, 
and  full-sized  only  in  width,  her  growth  having 
been  hampered  as  to  height  by  an  injury  to 
her  hip,  which  had  lamed  her,  pulling  her  fig 
ure  awry,  and  burdening  her  with  a  protuber 
ance  of  the  joint.  Her  mother  caused  it  by 
dropping  her  when  a  baby,  and  concealing  it, 
for  fear  of  punishment,  until  the  dislocation 
became  irremediable.  All  the  animosity  of 
which  little  Mammy  was  capable  centered 
upon  this  unknown  but  never-to-be-forgotten 
mother  of  hers  ;  out  of  this  hatred  had  grown 
her  love — that  is,  her  destiny,  a  woman's 
love  being  her  destiny.  Little  Mammy's  love 
was  for  children. 

The  birth  and  infancy  (the  one  as  accidental 
as  the  other,  one  would  infer)  took  place  in  — 


A   CRIPPLED   HOPE 


107 


it  sounds  like  the  ''Arabian  Nights"  now!  — 
took  place  in  the  great  room,  caravansary, 
stable,  behind  a  negro-trader's  auction-mart, 
where  human  beings  underwent  literally  the 


"THE    QUIET,    DIM-LIGHTED     ROOM     OF    A    CONVALESCENT." 

daily  buying  and  selling  of  which  the  world 
now  complains  in  a  figure  of  speech  — a  great, 
square,  dusty  chamber  where,  sitting  cross- 
legged,  leaning  against  the  wall,  or  lying  on 
foul  blanket  pallets  on  the  floor,  the  bargains 


loS  BALCONY    STORIES 

of  to-day  made  their  brief  sojourn,  awaiting 
transformation  into  the  profits  of  the  morrow. 

The  place  can  be  pointed  out  now,  is  often 
pointed  out ;  but  no  emotion  arises  at  sight  of 
it.  It  is  so  plain,  so  matter-of-fact  an  edifice 
that  emotion  only  comes  afterward  in  thinking 
about  it,  and  then  in  the  reflection  that  such 
an  edifice  could  be,  then  as  now,  plain  and 
matter-of-fact. 

For  the  slave-trader  there  was  no  capital 
so  valuable  as  the  physical  soundness  of  his 
stock  ;  the  moral  was  easily  enough  forged 
or  counterfeited.  Little  Mammy's  good-for- 
nothing  mother  was  sold  as  readily  as  a  vote, 
in  the  parlance  of  to-day ;  but  no  one  would 
pay  for  a  crippled  baby.  The  mother  herself 
would  not  have  taken  her  as  a  gift,  had  it 
been  in  the  nature  of  a  negro-trader  to  give 
away  anything.  Some  doctoring  was  done, — 
so  little  Mammy  heard  traditionally, — some 
effort  made  to  get  her  marketable.  There 
were  attempts  to  pair  her  off  as  a  twin  sister 
of  various  correspondencies  in  age,  size,  and 
color,  and  to  palm  her  off,  as  a  substitute,  at 
migratory,  bereaved,  overfull  breasts.  No 
thing  equaled  a  negro-trader's  will  and  power 
for  fraud,  except  the  hereditary  distrust  and 


A   CRIPPLED    HOPE 


109 


watchfulness  which  it  bred  and  maintained. 
And  so,  in  the  even  balance  between  the  two 
categories,  the  little  cripple  remained  a  fixture 
in  the  stream  of  life  that  passed  through  that 


"  LITTLE     MAMMY." 

back  room,  in  the  fluxes  and  refluxes  of  buy 
ing  and  selling ;  not  valueless,  however — 
rely  upon  a  negro-trader  for  discovering  val 
ues  as  substitutes,  as  panaceas.  She  earned 
her  nourishment,  and  Providence  did  not  let 


I  io  BALCONY    STORIES 

it  kill  the  little  animal  before  the  emancipation 
of  weaning  arrived. 

How  much  circumstances  evoked,  how 
much  instinct  responded,  belongs  to  the  se 
crets  which  nature  seems  to  intend  keeping. 
As  a  baby  she  had  eyes,  attention,  solely  for 
other  babies.  One  cannot  say  while  she  was 
still  crawling,  for  she  could  only  crawl  years 
after  she  should  have  been  walking,  but,  be 
fore  even  precocious  walking-time,  tradition 
or  the  old  gray-haired  negro  janitor  relates, 
she  would  creep  from  baby  to  baby  to  play 
with  it,  put  it  to  sleep,  pat  it,  rub  its  stomach 
(a  negro  baby,  you  know,  is  all  stomach,  and 
generally  aching  stomach  at  that).  And  be 
fore  she  had  a  lap,  she  managed  to  force  one 
for  some  ailing  nursling.  It  was  then  that 
they  began  to  call  her  "little  Mammy."  In 
the  transitory  population  of  the  "  pen  "  no  one 
stayed  long  enough  to  give  her  another  name ; 
and  no  one  ever  stayed  short  enough  to  give 
her  another  one. 

Her  first  recollection  of  herself  was  that 
she  could  not  walk — she  was  past  crawling; 
she  cradled  herself  along,  as  she  called  sit 
ting  down  flat,  and  working  herself  about 
with  her  hands  and  her  one  strong  leg. 


A    CRIPPLED    HOPE  HI 

Babbling  babies  walked  all  around  her, — 
many  walking  before  they  babbled, — and 
still  she  did  not  walk,  imitate  them  as  she 
might  and  did.  She  would  sit  and  "study" 
about  it,  make  another  trial,  fall ;  sit  and 
study  some  more,  make  another  trial,  fall 
again.  Negroes,  who  believe  that  they  must 
give  a  reason  for  everything  even  if  they 
have  to  invent  one,  were  convinced  that  it 
was  all  this  studying  upon  her  lameness  that  % 
gave  her  such  a  large  head. 

And  now  she  began  secretly  turning  up 
the  clothes  of  every  negro  child  that  came 
into  that  pen,  and  examining  its  legs,  and 
still  more  secretly  examining  her  own, 
stretched  out  before  her  on  the  ground. 
How  long  it  took  she  does  not  remember; 
in  fact,  she  could  not  have  known,  for  she 
had  no  way  of  measuring  time  except  by  her 
thoughts  and  feelings.  But  in  her  own  way 
and  time  the  due  process  of  deliberation  was 
fulfilled,  and  the  quotient  made  clear  that, 
bowed  or  not,  all  children's  legs  were  of 
equal  length  except  her  own,  and  all  were 
alike,  not  one  full,  strong,  hard,  the  other 
soft,  flabby,  wrinkled,  growing  out  of  a  knot 
at  the  hip.  A  whole  psychological  period 


112  BALCONY    STORIES 

apparently  lay  between  that  conclusion  and 
—a  broom-handle  walking-stick;  but  the 
broomstick  came,  as  it  was  bound  to  come, — 
thank  heaven!  —  from  that  premise,  and  what 
with  stretching  one  limb  to  make  it  longer, 
and  doubling  up  the  other  to  make  it  shorter, 
she  invented  that  form  of  locomotion  which 
is  still  carrying  her  through  life,  and  with 
no  more  exaggerated  leg-crookedness  than 
many  careless  negroes  born  with  straight 
limbs  display.  This  must  have  been  when 
she  was  about  eight  or  nine.  Hobbling  onv 
a  broomstick,  with,  no  doubt,  the  same  weird, 
wizened  face  as  now,  an  innate  sense  of  the 
fitness  of  things  must  have  suggested  the 
kerchief  tied  around  her  big  head,  and  the 
burlaps  rag  of  an  apron  in  front  of  her  linsey- 
woolsey  rag  of  a  gown,  and  the  bit  of  broken 
pipe-stem  in  the  corner  of  her  mouth,  where 
the  pipe  should  have  been,  and  where  it  was 
in  after  years.  That  is  the  way  she  recol 
lected  herself,  and  that  is  the  way  one  recalls 
her  now,  with  a  few  modifications. 

The  others  came  and  went,  but  she  was 
always  there.  It  was  n't  long  before  she  be 
came  "little  Mammy"  to  the  grown  folks 
too ;  and  the  newest  inmates  soon  learned  to 


A   CRIPPLED   HOPE  113 

cry  :  "  Where  's  little  Mammy  ?  "  "  Oh,  little 
Mammy !  little  Mammy  !  Such  a  misery  in 
my  head  [or  my  back,  or  my  stomach]  ! 
Can't  you  help  me,  little  Mammy  ?  "  It  was 
curious  what  a  quick  eye  she  had  for  symp 
toms  and  ailments,  and  what  a  quick  ear  for 
suffering,  and  how  apt  she  was  at  picking  up, 
remembering,  and  inventing  remedies.  It 
never  occurred  to  her  not  to  crouch  at  the 
head  or  the  foot  of  a  sick  pallet,  day  and 
night  through.  As  for  the  nights,  she  said 
she  dared  not  close  her  eyes  of  nights.  The 
room  they  were  in  was  so  vast,  and  some 
times  the  negroes  lay  so  thick  on  the  floor, 
rolled  in  their  blankets  (you  know,  even  in 
the  summer  they  sleep  under  blankets),  all 
snoring  so  loudly,  she  would  never  have 
heard  a  groan  or  a  whimper  any  more  than 
they  did,  if  she  had  slept,  too.  And  negro 
mothers  are  so  careless  and  such  heavy 
sleepers.  All  night  she  would  creep  at 
regular  intervals  to  the  different  pallets,  and 
draw  the  little  babies  from  under,  or  away 
from,  the  heavy,  inert  impending  mother 
forms.  There  is  no  telling  how  many  she  thus 
saved  from  being  overlaid  and  smothered,  or, 
what  was  worse,  maimed  and  crippled, 


U4  BALCONY    STORIES 

Whenever  a  physician  came  in,  as  he  was 
sometimes  called,  to  look  at  a  valuable  invest 
ment  or  to  furbish  up  some  piece  of  damaged 
goods,  she  always  managed  to  get  near  to 
hear  the  directions ;  and  she  generally  was 
the  one  to  apply  them  also,  for  negroes  al 
ways  would  steal  medicines  most  scurvily 
one  from  the  other.  And  when  death  at 
times  would  slip  into  the  pen,  despite  the  tra 
der's  utmost  alertness  and  precautions, — as 
death  often  "had  to  do,"  little  Mammy  said, 
— when  the  time  of  some  of  them  came  to 
die,  and  when  the  rest  of  the  negroes,  with 
African  greed  of  eye  for  the  horrible,  would 
press  around  the  lowly  couch  where  the 
agonizing  form  of  a  slave  lay  writhing  out 
of  life,  she  would  always  to  the  last  give 
medicines,  and  wipe  the  cold  forehead,  and 
soothe  the  clutching,  fearsome  hands,  hop 
ing  to  the  end,  and  trying  to  inspire  the 
hope  that  his  or  her  "time"  had  not  come 
yet;  for,  as  she  said,  "Our  time  does  n't 
come  just  as  often  as  it  does  come." 

And  in  those  sad  last  offices,  which  some 
how  have  always  been  under  reproach  as  a 
kind  of  shame,  no  matter  how  young  she 
was,  she  was  always  too  old  to  have  the 


A   CRIPPLED   HOPE  115 

childish  avoidance  of  them.  On  the  con 
trary,  to  her  a  corpse  was  only  a  kind  of 
baby,  and  she  always  strove,  she  said,  to 
make  one,  like  the  other,  easy  and  com 
fortable. 

And  in  other  emergencies  she  divined  the 
mysteries  of  the  flesh,  as  other  precocities 
divine  the  mysteries  of  painting  and  music, 
and  so  become  child  wonders. 

Others  came  and  went.  She  alone  re 
mained  there.  Babies  of  her  babyhood — 
the  toddlers  she,  a  toddler,  had  nursed — 
were  having  babies  themselves  now;  the  mid 
dle-aged  had  had  time  to  grow  old  and  die. 
Every  week  new  families  were  coming  into 
the  great  back  chamber;  every  week  they 
passed  out:  babies,  boys,  girls,  buxom  wen 
ches,  stalwart  youths,  and  the  middle-aged 
—  the  grave,  serious  ones  whom  misfortune 
had  driven  from  their  old  masters,  and  the 
ill-reputed  ones,  the  trickish,  thievish,  lazy, 
whom  the  cunning  of  the  negro-trader  alone 
could  keep  in  circulation.  All  were  market 
able,  all  were  bought  and  sold,  all  passed  in 
one  door  and  out  the  other  —  all  except  her, 
little  Mammy.  As  with  her  lameness,  it  took 
time  for  her  to  recognize,  to  understand,  the 


n6  BALCONY    STORIES 

fact.  She  could  study  over  her  lameness,  she 
could  in  the  dull  course  of  time  think  out  the 
broomstick  way  of  palliation.  It  would  have 
been  almost  better,  under  the  circumstances, 
for  God  to  have  kept  the  truth  from  her;  only 
—  God  keeps  so  little  of  the  truth  from  us 
women.  It  is  his  system. 

Poor  little  thing !  It  was  not  now  that  her 
master  could  not  sell  her,  but  he  would  not ! 
Out  of  her  own  intelligence  she  had  forged 
her  chains;  the  lameness  was  a  hobble  merely 
in  comparison.  She  had  become  too  valuable 
to  the  negro-trader  by  her  services  among  his 
crew,  and  offers  only  solidified  his  determina 
tion  not  to  sell  her.  Visiting  physicians,  after 
short  acquaintance  with  her  capacities,  would 
offer  what  were  called  fancy  prices  for  her. 
Planters  who  heard  of  her  through  their  pur 
chases  would  come  to  the  city  purposely  to 
secure,  at  any  cost,  so  inestimable  an  adjunct 
to  their  plantations.  Even  ladies — refined, 
delicate  ladies — sometimes  came  to  the  pen 
personally  to  back  money  with  influence.  In 
vain.  Little  Mammy  was  worth  more  to  the 
negro-trader,  simply  as  a  kind  of  insurance 
against  accidents,  than  any  sum,  however 
glittering  the  figure,  and  he  was  no  ignorant 


A   CRIPPLED    HOPE  117 

expert  in  human  wares.  She  can  tell  it ;  no 
one  else  can  for  her.  Remember  that  at 
times  she  had  seen  the  streets  outside.  Re 
member  that  she  could  hear  of  the  outside 
world  daily  from  the  passing  chattels — of  the 
plantations,  farms,  families ;  the  green  fields, 
Sunday  woods,  running  streams ;  the  camp- 
meetings,  corn-shuckings,  cotton-pickings,  su- 
gar-grindings ;  the  baptisms,  marriages,  fu 
nerals,  prayer-meetings;  the  holidays  and  holy 
days.  Remember  that,  whether  for  liberty  or 
whether  for  love,  passion  effloresces  in  the 
human  being — no  matter  when,  where,  or 
how — with  every  spring's  return.  Remem 
ber  that  she  was,  even  in  middle  age,  young 
and  vigorous.  But  no ;  do  not  remember 
anything.  There  is  no  need  to  heighten  the 
coloring. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  relate,  although  it 
was  not  tedious  to  hear  her  relate  it,  the  des 
perations  and  hopes  of  her  life  then.  Hardly 
a  day  passed  that  she  did  not  see,  looking  for 
purchases  (rummaging  among  goods  on  a 
counter  for  bargains),  some  master  whom  she 
could  have  loved,  some  mistress  whom  she 
could  have  adored.  Always  her  favorite  mis 
tresses  were  there  —  tall,  delicate  matrons, 


8* 


ii8  BALCONY    STORIES 

who  came  themselves,  with  great  fatigue,  to 
select  kindly-faced  women  for  nurses ;  lan 
guid-looking  ladies  with  smooth  hair  stand 
ing  out  in  wide  bandeaux  from  their  heads, 
and  lace  shawls  dropping  from  their  sloping 
shoulders,  silk  dresses  carelessly  held  up  in 
thumb  and  finger  from  embroidered  petticoats 
that  were  spread  out  like  tents  over  huge 
hoops  which  covered  whole  groups  of  swarm 
ing  piccaninnies  on  the  dirty  floor;  ladies,  pale 
from  illnesses  that  she  might  have  nursed, 
and  over-burdened  with  children  whom  she 
might  have  reared !  And  not  a  lady  of  that 
kind  saw  her  face  but  wanted  her,  yearned 
for  her,  pleaded  for  her,  coming  back  secretly 
to  slip  silver,  and  sometimes  gold,  pieces  into 
her  hand,  patting  her  turbaned  head,  calling 
her  ''little  Mammy"  too,  instantly,  by  inspira 
tion,  and  making  the  negro-trader  give  them, 
with  all  sorts  of  assurances,  the  refusal  of  her. 
She  had  no  need  for  the  whispered  "Buy  me, 
master!"  "Buy  me,  mistress!"  "You  '11  see 
how  I  can  work,  master!"  "You  '11  never  be 
sorry,  mistress!"  of  the  others.  The  negro- 
trader —  like  hangmen,  negro-traders  are  fit 
ted  by  nature  for  their  profession — it  came 
into  his  head  —  he  had  no  heart,  not  even 


A    CRIPPLED    HOPE  119 

a  negro- trader's  heart — that  it  would  be  more 
judicious  to  seclude  her  during  these  shop 
ping  visits,  so  to  speak.  She  could  not  have 
had  any  hopes  then  at  all;  it  must  have  been 
all  desperations. 

That  auction-block,  that  executioner's  block, 
about  which  so  much  has  been  written — Ja 
cob's  ladder,  in  his  dream,  was  nothing  to 
what  that  block  appeared  nightly  in  her 
dreams  to  her;  and  the  climbers  up  and  down 
—  well,  perhaps  Jacob's  angels  were  his 
hopes,  too. 

At  times  she  determined  to  depreciate  her 
usefulness,  mar  her  value,  by  renouncing  her 
heart,  denying  her  purpose.  For  days  she 
would  tie  her  kerchief  over  her  ears  and  eyes, 
and  crouch  in  a  corner,  strangling  her  im 
pulses.  She  even  malingered,  refused  food,  be 
came  dumb.  And  she  might  have  succeeded 
in  making  herself  salable  through  incipient 
lunacy,  if  through  no  other  way,  had  she  been 
able  to  maintain  her  role  long  enough.  But 
some  woman  or  baby  always  was  falling  into 
some  emergency  of  pain  and  illness. 

How  it  might  have  ended  one  does  not  like 
to  think.  Fortunately,  one  does  not  need  to 
think. 


120  BALCONY    STORIES 

There  came  a  night.  She  sat  alone  in  the 
vast,  dark  caravansary  —  alone  for  the  first 
time  in  her  life.  Empty  rags  and  blankets  lay 
strewn  over  the  floor,  no  snoring,  no  tossing 
in  them  more.  A  sacrificial  sale  that  day  had 
cleared  the  counters.  Alarm-bells  rang  in  the 
streets,  but  she  did  not  know  them  for  alarm- 
bells  ;  alarm  brooded  in  the  dim  space  around 
her,  but  she  did  not  even  recognize  that.  Her 
protracted  tension  of  heart  had  made  her  fear- 
blind  to  all  but  one  peradventure. 

Once  or  twice  she  forgot  herself,  and 
limped  over  to  some  heap  to  relieve  an  ima 
ginary  struggling  babe  or  moaning  sleeper. 
Morning  came.  She  had  dozed.  She  looked 
to  see  the  rag-heaps  stir ;  they  lay  as  still  as 
corpses.  The  alarm-bells  had  ceased.  She 
looked  to  see  a  new  gang  enter  the  far  door. 
She  listened  for  the  gathering  buzzing  of 
voices  in  the  next  room,  around  the  auction  - 
block.  She  waited  for  the  trader.  She 
waited  for  the  janitor.  At  nightfall  a  file  of 
soldiers  entered.  They  drove  her  forth, 
ordering  her  in  the  voice,  in  the  tone,  of  the 
negro-trader.  That  was  the  only  familiar 
thing  in  the  chaos  of  incomprehensibility 
about  her.  She  hobbled  through  the  auction- 


A   CRIPPLED    HOPE  121 

room.  Posters,  advertisements,  papers,  lay 
on  the  floor,  and  in  the  torch-light  glared 
from  the  wall.  Her  Jacob's  ladder,  her  step 
ping-stone  to  her  hopes,  lay  overturned  in 
a  corner. 

You  divine  it.  The  negro-trader's  trade 
was  abolished,  and  he  had  vanished  in  the  din 
and  smoke  of  a  war  which  he  had  not  been 
entirely  guiltless  of  producing,  leaving  little 
Mammy  locked  up  behind  him.  Had  he  for 
gotten  her?  One  cannot  even  hope  so.  She 
hobbled  out  into  the  street,  leaning  on  her 
nine-year-old  broomstick  (she  had  grown 
only  slightly  beyond  it ;  could  still  use  it  by 
bending  over  it),  her  head  tied  in  a  rag  ker 
chief,  a  rag  for  a  gown,  a  rag  for  an  apron. 

Free,  she  was  free  !  But  she  had  not  hoped 
for  freedom.  The  plantation,  the  household, 
the  delicate  ladies,  the  teeming  children, — 
broomsticks  they  were  in  comparison  to  free 
dom,  but, —  that  was  what  she  had  asked, 
what  she  had  prayed  for.  God,  she  said,  had 
let  her  drop,  just  as  her  mother  had  done. 
More  than  ever  she  grieved,  as  she  crept 
down  the  street,  that  she  had  never  mounted 
the  auctioneer's  block.  An  ownerless  free 
negro !  She  knew  no  one  whose  duty  it  was 


122  BALCONY    STORIES 

to  help  her ;  no  one  knew  her  to  help  her. 
In  the  whole  world  (it  was  all  she  had  asked) 
there  was  no  white  child  to  call  her  mammy, 
no  white  lady  or  gentleman  (it  was  the  ex 
tent  of  her  dreams)  beholden  to  her  as  to  a 
nurse.  And  all  her  innumerable  black  bene 
ficiaries  !  Even  the  janitor,  whom  she  had 
tended  as  the  others,  had  deserted  her  like 
his  white  prototype. 

She  tried  to  find  a  place  for  herself,  but  she 
had  no  indorsers,  no  recommenders.  She 
dared  not  mention  the  name  of  the  negro- 
trader;  it  banished  her  not  only  from  the 
households  of  the  whites,  but  from  those  of 
the  genteel  of  her  own  color.  And  every 
where  soldiers  sentineled  the  streets — sol 
diers  whose  tone  and  accent  reminded  her 
of  the  negro-trader. 

Her  sufferings,  whether  imaginary  or  real, 
were  sufficiently  acute  to  drive  her  into  the 
only  form  of  escape  which  once  had  been  pos 
sible  to  friendless  negroes.  She  became  a 
runaway.  With  a  bundle  tied  to  the  end  of  a 
stick  over  her  shoulder,  just  as  the  old  prints 
represent  it,  she  fled  from  her  homelessness 
and  loneliness,  from  her  ignoble  past,  and  the 
heart-disappointing  termination  of  it.  Follow 
ing  a  railroad  track,  journeying  afoot,  sleep- 


A    CRIPPLED    HOPE  123 

ing  by  the  roadside,  she  lived  on  until  she 
came  to  the  one  familiar  landmark  in  life  to 
her  —  a  sick  woman,  but  a  white  one.  And 
so,  progressing  from  patient  to  patient  (it  was 
a  time  when  sick  white  women  studded  the 
country  like  mile-posts),  she  arrived  at  a  little 
town,  a  kind  of  a  refuge  for  soldiers'  wives  and 
widows.  She  never  traveled  further.  She 
could  not.  Always,  as  in  the  pen,  some 
emergency  of  pain  and  illness  held  her. 

That  is  all.  She  is  still  there.  The  poor, 
poor  women  of  that  stricken  region  say  that 
little  Mammy  was  the  only  alleviation  God 
left  them  after  Sheridan  passed  through  ;  and 
the  richer  ones  say  very  much  the  same 
thing  — 

But  one  should  hear  her  tell  it  herself,  as 
has  been  said,  on  a  cold,  gloomy  winter  day 
in  the  country,  the  fire  glimmering  on  the 
hearth;  the  overworked  husband  in  the  fields; 
the  baby  quiet  at  last ;  the  mother  uneasy, 
restless,  thought-driven  ;  the  soft  black  hand 
rubbing  backward  and  forward,  rubbing  out 
aches  and  frets  and  nervousness. 

The  eyelids  droop ;  the  firelight  plays  fan 
tasies  on  the  bed- curtains ;  the  ear  drops 
words,  sentences  ;  one  gets  confused —  one 
sleeps — one  dreams. 


ONE   OF   US" 


-ONE    OF  US" 

AT  the  first  glance  one  might  have  been 
inclined  to  doubt;  but  at  the  second 
anybody  would  have  recognized  her — that 
is,  with  a  little  mental  rehabilitation :  the 
bright  little  rouge  spots  in  the  hollow  of  her 
cheek,  the  eyebrows  well  accentuated  with 
paint,  the  thin  lips  rose-tinted,  and  the  dull, 
straight  hair  frizzed  and  curled  and  twisted 
and  turned  by  that  consummate  rascal  and 
artist,  the  official  beautifier  and  rectifier  of 
stage  humanity,  Robert,  the  opera  coiffeur. 
Who  in  the  world  knows  better  than  he 
the  gulf  between  the  real  and  the  ideal, 
the  limitations  between  the  natural  and  the 
romantic  ? 

Yes,  one  could  see  her,  in  that  time- 
honored  thin  silk  dress  of  hers  stiffened  into 
brocade  by  buckram  underneath ;  the  high, 
low-necked  waist,  hiding  any  evidences  of 

breast,  if  there  were  such  evidences  to  hide, 

127 


128  BALCONY    STORIES 

and  bringing  the  long  neck  into  such  faulty 
prominence ;  and  the  sleeves,  crisp  puffs  of 
tulle  divided  by  bands  of  red  velvet,  through 
which  the  poor  lean  arm  runs  like  a  wire, 
stringing  them  together  like  beads.  Yes,  it 
was  she,  the  whilom  dugazon  of  the  opera 
troupe.  Not  that  she  ever  was  a  diigazon, 
but  that  was  what  her  voice  once  aspired 
to  be :  a  dugazon  manquee  would  better 
describe  her. 

What  a  ghost !  But  they  always  appeared 
like  mere  evaporations  of  real  women.  For 
what  woman  of  flesh  and  blood  can  seriously 
maintain  through  life  the  role  of  sham  at 
tendant  on  sham  sensations,  and  play  public 
celebrant  of  other  women's  loves  and  lovers, 
singing,  or  rather  saying,  nothing  more  en 
livening  than:  "Oh,  madame  !  "  and  "Ah, 
madame  !  "  and  "  Qitelle  ivressc!"  or  "  Qzielle 
horreiir!"  or,  in  recitative,  detailing  what 
ever  dreary  platitudes  and  inanities  the  li 
brettist  and  Heaven  connive  to  put  upon 
the  tongues  of  confidantes  and  attendants  ? 

Looking  at  her  —  how  it  came  over  one! 
The  music,  the  lights,  the  scene ;  the  fat  so 
prano  confiding  to  her  the  fact  of  the  "amour 
extreme "  she  bears  for  the  tenor,  to  which 


n 


TO    POSE   IN    ABJECT   PATIENCE   AND   AWKWARDNESS," 


"ONE   OF    US"  131 

she,  the  dugazon^  does  not  even  try  to  listen; 
her  eyes  wandering  listlessly  over  the  au 
dience.  The  calorous  secret  out,  and  in  her 
possession,  how  she  stumbles  over  her  train 
to  the  back  of  the  stage,  there  to  pose  in 
abject  patience  and  awkwardness,  while  the 
gallant  barytone,  touching  his  sword,  and 
flinging  his  cape  over  his  shoulder,  defies  the 
world  and  the  tenor,  who  is  just  recovering 
from  his  "  ut  de  poitrine  "  behind  the  scenes. 

She  was  talking  to  me  all  the  time,  apolo 
gizing  for  the  intrusion,  explaining  her  mis 
sion,  which  involved  a  short  story  of  her  life, 
as  women's  intrusions  and  missions  usually 
do.  But  my  thoughts,  also  as  usual,  dis 
tracted  me  from  listening,  as  so  often  they 
have  distracted  me  from  following  what  was 
perhaps  more  profitable. 

The  composer,  of  course,  wastes  no  music 
upon  her ;  flinging  to  her  only  an  occasional 
recitative  in  two  notes,  but  always  ending  in 
a  reef  of  a  scale,  trill,  or  roulade,  for  her 
to  wreck  her  voice  on  before  the  audience. 
The  chef  d'  orchestre,  if  he  is  charitable, 
starts  her  off  with  a  contribution  from  his 
own  lusty  lungs,  and  then  she — oh,  her  voice 
is  always  thinner  and  more  osseous  than  her 


132  BALCONY    STORIES 

arms,  and  her  smile   no   more  graceful  than 
her  train  ! 

As  well  think  of  the  simulated  trees,  water 
falls,  and  chateaux  leaving  the  stage,  as  the 
dugazon !  One  always  imagines  them  sing 
ing  on  into  dimness,  dustiness,  unsteadiness, 
and  uselessness,  until,  like  any  other  piece 
of  stage  property,  they  are  at  last  put 
aside  and  simply  left  there  at  the  end  of 
some  season  —  there  seems  to  be  a  super 
stition  against  selling  or  burning  useless  and 
dilapidated  stage  property.  As  it  came  to 
me,  the  idea  was  not  an  impossibility.  The 
last  representation  of  the  season  is  over. 
She,  tired  beyond  judgment — haply,  beyond 
feeling — by  her  tireless  role,  sinks  upon  her 
chair  to  rest. in  her  dressing-room;  sinks, 
further,  to  sleep.  She  has  no  maid.  The 
troupe,  hurrying  away  to  France  on  the 
special  train  waiting  not  half  a  dozen  blocks 
away,  forget  her — the  insignificant  are  so 
easily  forgotten  !  The  porter,  more  tired, 
perhaps,  than  any  one  of  the  beautiful  ideal 
world  about  him,  and  savoring  already  in 
advance  the  good  onion-flavored  grillade 
awaiting  him  at  home,  locks  up  everything 
fast  and  tight ;  the  tighter  and  faster  for  the 


"ONE   OF    US"  133 

good  fortnight's  vacation  he  has  promised 
himself. 

No  doubt  if  the  old  opera-house  were  ever 
cleaned  out,  just  such  a  heap  of  stiff,  wire- 
strung  bones  would  be  found,  in  some  such 
hole  as  the  dugazoris  dressing-room,  desic 
cating  away  in  its  last  costume  —  perhaps  in 
that  very  costume  of  Inez ;  and  if  one  were 
venturesome  enough  to  pass  Allhallowe'en 
there,  the  spirit  of  those  bones  might  be  seen 
availing  itself  of  the  privilege  of  unasperged 
corpses  to  roam.  Not  singing,  not  talking — 
it  is  an  anachronism  to  say  that  ghosts  talk : 
their  medium  of  communication  must  be  pure 
thought ;  and  one  should  be  able  to  see  their 
thoughts  working,  just  as  one  sees  the  work 
ing  of  the  digestive  organs  in  the  clear  vis 
cera  of  transparent  animalculae.  The  hard 
thing  of  it  is  that  ghosts  are  chained  to  the 
same  scenes  that  chained  their  bodies,  and 
when  they  sleep-walk,  so  to  speak,  it  must 
be  through  phases  of  former  existence. 
What  a  nightmare  for  them  to  go  over  once 
again  the  lived  and  done,  the  suffered  and 
finished  !  What  a  comfort  to  wake  up  and 
find  one's  self  dead,  well  dead  ! 

I  could  have  continued  and  put  the  whole 

9* 


134  BALCONY    STORIES 

opera  troupe  in  "costume  de  ghost,"  but  I 
think  it  was  the  woman's  eyes  that  drew  me 
back  to  her  face  and  her  story.  She  had  a 
sensible  face,  now  that  I  observed  her  natu 
rally,  as  it  were  ;  and  her.  hands, — how  I  have 
agonized  over  those  hands  on  the  stage  !  — 
all  knuckles  and  exaggerated  veins,  clutch 
ing  her  dress  as  she  sang,  or,  petrified, 
outstretched  to  Leonards  "  Pourquoi  ces 
larmes?" — her  hands  were  the  hands  of  an 
honest,  hard-working  woman  who  buckrams 
her  own  skirts,  and  at  need  could  scrub  her 
own  floor.  Her  face  (my  description  follow 
ing  my  wandering  glance) — her  face  was 
careworn,  almost  to  desuetude ;  not  dissipa 
tion-worn,  as,  alas !  the  faces  of  the  more 
gifted  ladies  of  opera  troupes  too  often  are. 
There  was  no  fattening  in  it  of  pastry,  truf 
fles,  and  bonbons  ;  upon  it  none  of  the  tracery 
left  by  nightly  champagne  tides  and  ripples ; 
and  consequently  her  figure,  under  her  plain 
dress,  had  not  that  for  display  which  the 
world  has  conventioned  to  call  charms. 
Where  a  window-cord  would  hardly  have 
sufficed  to  girdle  Leonore,  a  necklace  would 
have  served  her.  She  had  not  beauty 
enough  to  fear  the  flattering  dangers  of 


"ONE    OF    US"  135 

masculine  snares  and  temptations, —  or  there 
may  have  been  other  reasons, — but  as  a 
wife — there  was  something  about  her  that 
guaranteed  it — she  would  have  blossomed 
love  and  children  as  a  fig-tree  does  figs. 

In  truth,  she  was  just  talking  about  chil 
dren.  The  first  part  of  her  story  had  passed: 
her  birthplace,  education,  situation  ;  and  now 
she  was  saying : 

"  I  have  always  had  the  temptation,  but 
I  have  always  resisted  it.  Now," — with  a 
blush  at  her  excuse,  —  "it  may  be  your  spring 
weather,  your  birds,  your  flowers,  your  sky — 
and  your  children  in  the  streets.  The  longing 
came  over  me  yesterday :  I  thought  of  it  on 
the  stage,  I  thought  of  it  afterward — it  was 
better  than  sleeping;  and  this  morning" — 
her  eyes  moistened,  she  breathed  excitedly 
—  "I  was  determined.  I  gave  up,  I  made 
inquiry,  I  was  sent  to  you.  Would  it  be 
possible?  Would  there  be  any  place"  ("any 
role,"  she  said  first)  "in  any  of  your  asylums, 
in  any  of  your  charitable  institutions,  for  me  ? 
I  would  ask  nothing  but  my  clothes  and  food, 
and  very  little  of  that ;  the  recompense  would 
be  the  children  —  the  little  girl  children," 
with  a  smile — can  you  imagine  the  smile  of 


136  BALCONY    STORIES 

a  woman  dreaming  of  children  that  might 
be  ?  "  Think  !  Never  to  have  held  a  child  in 
my  arms  more  than  a  moment,  never  to  have 
felt  a  child's  arms  about  my  neck  !  Never  to 
have  known  a  child  !  Born  on  a  stage,  my 
mother  born  on  a  stage ! "  Ah,  there  were 
tragic  possibilities  in  that  voice  and  move 
ment !  "Pardon,  madam.  You  see  how  I 
repeat.  And  you  must  be  very  wearied 
hearing  about  me.  But  I  could  be  their 
nurse  and  their  servant.  I  would  bathe  and 
dress  them,  play  with  them,  teach  them  their 
prayers ;  and  when  they  are  sick  they  would 
see  no  difference.  They  would  not  know  but 
what  their  mother  was  there  !  " 

Oh,  she  had  her  program  all  prepared ; 
one  could  see  that. 

"  And  I  would  sing  to  them  —  no!  no!" 
with  a  quick  gesture,  "nothing  from  the 
stage ;  little  songs  and  lullabys  I  have  picked 
up  traveling  around,  and,"  hesitating,  "little 
things  I  have  composed  myself — little  things 
that  I  thought  children  would  like  to  hear 
some  day."  What  did  she  not  unconsciously 
throw  into  those  last  words?  "I  dream  of 
it,"  she  pursued,  talking  with  as  little  regard 
to  me  as  on  the  stage  she  sang  to  the 


4<ONE    OF    US"  137 

prima  donna.  "  Their  little  arms,  their 
little  faces,  their  little  lips !  And  in  an 
asylum  there  would  be  so  many  of  them ! 
When  they  cried  and  were  in  trouble  I 
would  take  them  in  my  lap,  and  I  would 
say  to  them,  with  all  sorts  of  tenderness — " 
She  had  arranged  that  in  her  program, 
too — all  the  minutiae  of  what  she  would 
say  to  them  in  their  distress.  But  women 
are  that  way.  When  once  they  begin 
to  love,  their  hearts  are  magnifying-lenses 
for  them  to  feel  through.  "And  my  heart 
hungers  to  commence  right  here,  now,  at 
once !  It  seems  to  me  I  cannot  wait.  Ah, 
madam,  no  more  stage,  no  more  opera ! " 
speaking  quickly,  feverishly.  "As  I  said,  it 
may  be  your  beautiful  spring,  your  flowers, 
your  birds,  and  your  numbers  of  children.  I 
have  always  loved  that  place  most  where 
there  are  most  children  ;  and  you  have  more 
children  here  than  I  ever  saw  anywhere. 
Children  are  so  beautiful !  It  is  strange,  is 
it  not,  when  you  consider  my  life  and  my 
rearing  ? " 

Her  life,  her  rearing,  how  interesting  they 
must  have  been !  What  a  pity  I  had  not 
listened  more  attentively  ! 


138  BALCONY    STORIES 

"  They  say  you  have  much  to  do  with 
asylums  here." 

Evidently,  when  roles  do  not  exist  in  life 
for  certain  characters,  God  has  to  create 
them.  And  thus  He  had  to  create  a  role  in  an 
asylum  for  my  friend,  for  so  she  became  from 
the  instant  she  spoke  of  children  as  she  did. 
It  was  the  poorest  and  neediest  of  asylums; 
and  the  poor  little  orphaned  wretches — but 
it  is  better  not  to  speak  of  them.  How  can 
God  ever  expect  to  rear  children  without 
their  mothers  ! 

But  the  role  I  craved  to  create  for  my 
friend  was  far  different — some  good,  honest 
bourgeois  interior,  where  lips  are  coarse  and 
cheeks  are  ruddy,  and  where  life  is  composed 
of  real  scenes,  set  to  the  real  music  of  life,  the 
homely  successes  and  failures,  and  loves  and 
hates,  and  embraces  and  tears,  that  fill  out 
the  orchestra  of  the  heart ;  where  romance 
and  poetry  abound  au  nature  I ;  and  where — 
yes,  where  children  grow  as  thick  as  nature 
permits :  the  domestic  interior  of  the  opera 
porter,  for  instance,  or  the  clockmaker  over 
the  way.  But  what  a  loss  the  orphan-asylum 
would  have  suffered,  and  the  dreary  lacking 
there  would  have  been  in  the  lives  of  the 


"ONE    OF    US"  139 

children  !  For  there  must  have  been  moments 
in  the  lives  of  the  children  in  that  asylum 
when  they  felt,  awake,  as  they  felt  in  their 
sleep  when  they  dreamed  their  mothers  were 
about  them. 


THE   LITTLE   CONVENT   GIRL 


THE   LITTLE    CONVENT    GIRL 

SHE  was  coming  down  on  the  boat  from 
Cincinnati,  the  little  convent  girl.  Two 
sisters  had  brought  her  aboard.  They 
gave  her  in  charge  of  the  captain,  got  her  a 
state-room,  saw  that  the  new  little  trunk  was 
put  into  it,  hung  the  new  little  satchel  up  on 
the  wall,  showed  her  how  to  bolt  the  door 
at  night,  shook  hands  with  her  for  good-by 
(good-bys  have  really  no  significance  for 
sisters),  and  left  her  there.  After  a  while 
the  bells  all  rang,  and  the  boat,  in  the 
awkward  elephantine  fashion  of  boats,  got 
into  midstream.  The  chambermaid  found 
her  sitting  on  the  chair  in  the  state-room 
where  the  sisters  had  left  her,  and  showed 
her  how  to  sit  on  a  chair  in  the  saloon.  And 
there  she  sat  until  the  captain  came  and 
hunted  her  up  for  supper.  She  could  not  do 
anything  of  herself;  she  had  to  be  initiated 
into  everything  by  some  one  else. 


143 


H4  BALCONY    STORIES 

She  was  known  on  the  boat  only  as  "the 
little  convent  girl."  Her  name,  of  course, 
was  registered  in  the  clerk's  office,  but  on  a 
steamboat  no  one  thinks  of  consulting  the 
clerk's  ledger.  It  is  always  the  little  widow, 
the  fat  madam,  the  tall  colonel,  the  parson, 
etc.  The  captain,  who  pronounced  by  the 
letter,  always  called  her  the  little  convent 
girl.  She  was  the  beau-ideal  of  the  little, 
convent  girl.  She  never  raised  her  eyes 
except  when  spoken  to.  Of  course  she 
never  spoke  first,  even  to  the  chambermaid, 
and  when  she  did  speak  it  was  in  the  wee, 
shy,  furtive  voice  one  might  imagine  a  just- 
budding  violet  to  have ;  and  she  walked  with 
such  soft,  easy,  carefully  calculated  steps  that 
one  naturally  felt  the  penalties  that  must 
have  secured  them — penalties  dictated  by  a 
black  code  of  deportment. 

She  was  dressed  in  deep  mourning.  Her 
black  straw  hat  was  trimmed  with  stiff  new 
crape,  and  her  stiff  new  bombazine  dress  had 
crape  collar  and  cuffs.  She  wore  her  hair  in 
two  long  plaits  fastened  around  her  head 
tight  and  fast.  Her  hair  had  a  strong  incli 
nation  to  curl,  but  that  had  been  taken  out  of 
.it  as  austerely  as  the  noise  out  of  her  footfalls. 


THE    SISTERS     BID     HER    GOOD-BY. 


THE    LITTLE    CONVENT    GIRL  14? 

Her  hair  was  as  black  as  her  dress ;  her 
eyes,  when  one  saw  them,  seemed  blacker 
than  either,  on  account  of  the  bluishness  of 
the  white  surrounding  the  pupil.  Her  eye 
lashes  were  almost  as  thick  as  the  black  veil 
which  the  sisters  had  fastened  around  her  hat 
with  an  extra  pin  the  very  last  thing  before 
leaving.  She  had  a  round  little  face,  and  a 
tiny  pointed  chin ;  her  mouth  was  slightly 
protuberant  from  the  teeth,  over  which  she 
tried  to  keep  her  lips  well  shut,  the  effort 
giving  them  a  pathetic  little  forced  expres 
sion.  Her  complexion  was  sallow,  a  pale 
sallow,  the  complexion  of  a  brunette  bleached 
in  darkened  rooms.  The  only  color  about 
her  was  a  blue  taffeta  ribbon  from  which 
a  large  silver  medal  of  the  Virgin  hung  over 
the  place  where  a  breastpin  should  have  been. 
She  was  so  little,  so  little,  although  she  was 
eighteen,  as  the  sisters  told  the  captain ; 
otherwise  they  would  not  have  permitted  her 
to  travel  all  the  way  to  New  Orleans  alone. 
Unless  the  captain  or  the  clerk  remem 
bered  to  fetch  her  out  in  front,  she  would  sit 
all  day  in  the  cabin,  in  the  same  place, 
crocheting  lace,  her  spool  of  thread  and  box 
of  patterns  in  her  lap,  on  the  handkerchief 


148  BALCONY    STORIES 

spread  to  save  her  new  dress.  Never  leaning 
back — oh,  no  !  always  straight  and  stiff,  as  if 
the  conventual  back  board  were  there  within 
call.  She  would  eat  only  convent  fare  at 
first,  notwithstanding  the  importunities  of  the 
waiters,  and  the  jocularities  of  the  captain, 
and  particularly  of  the  clerk.  Every  one 
knows  the  fund  of  humor  possessed  by  a 
steamboat  clerk,  and  what  a  field  for  display 
the  table  at  meal-times  affords.  On  Friday 
she  fasted  rigidly,  and  she  never  began  to 
eat,  or  finished,  without  a  little  Latin  move 
ment  of  the  lips  and  a  sign  of  the  cross. 
And  always  at  six  o'clock  of  the  evening  she 
remembered  the  angelus,  although  there  was 
no  church  bell  to  remind  her  of  it. 

She  was  in  mourning  for  her  father,  the 
sisters  told  the  captain,  and  she  was  going  to 
New  Orleans  to  her  mother.  She  had  not 
seen  her  mother  since  she  was  an  infant,  on 
account  of  some  disagreement  between  the 
parents,  in  consequence  of  which  the  father 
had  brought  her  to  Cincinnati,  and  placed 
her  in  the  convent.  There  she  had  been  for 
twelve  years,  only  going  to  her  father  for 
vacations  and  holidays.  So  long  as  the  fa 
ther  lived  he  would  never  let  the  child  have 


THE   LITTLE   CONVENT    GIRL  149 

any  communication  with  her  mother.  Now 
that  he  was  dead  all  that  was  changed,  and 
the  first  thing  that  the  girl  herself  wanted  to 
do  was  to  go  to  her  mother. 

The  mother  superior  had  arranged  it  all 
with  the  mother  of  the  girl,  who  was  to  come 
personally  to  the  boat  in  New  Orleans,  and 
receive  her  child  from  the  captain,  presenting 
a  letter  from  the  mother  superior,  a  facsimile 
of  which  the  sisters  gave  the  captain. 

It  is  a  long  voyage  from  Cincinnati  to 
New  Orleans,  the  rivers  doing  their  best 
to  make  it  interminable,  embroidering  them 
selves  ad  libitum  all  over  the  country. 
Every  five  miles,  and  sometimes  oftener,  the 
boat  would  stop  to  put  off  or  take  on  freight, 
if  not  both.  The  little  convent  girl,  sitting 
in  the  cabin,  had  her  terrible  frights  at  first 
from  the  hideous  noises  attendant  on  these 
landings — the  whistles,  the  ringings  of  the 
bells,  the  running  to  and  fro,  the  shouting. 
Every  time  she  thought  it  was  shipwreck, 
death,  judgment,  purgatory  ;  and  her  sins ! 
her  sins !  She  would  drop  her  crochet,  and 
clutch  her  prayer-beads  from  her  pocket,  and 
relax  the  constraint  over  her  lips,  which 
would  go  to  rattling  off  prayers  with  the  ve- 


10* 


150 


BALCONY    STORIES 


locity  of  a  relaxed  windlass.  That  was  at 
first,  before  the  captain  took  to  fetching  her 
out  in  front  to  see  the  boat  make  a  landing. 


WATCHING    A    LANDING. 


Then  she  got  to  liking  it  so  much  that  she 
would  stay  all  day  just  where  the  captain  put 
her,  going  inside  only  for  her  meals.  She 


THE   LITTLE   CONVENT    GIRL  151 

forgot  herself  at  times  so  much  that  she 
would  draw  her  chair  a  little  closer  to  the 
railing,  and  put  up  her  veil,  actually,  to  see 
better.  No  one  ever  usurped  her  place, 
quite  in  front,  or  intruded  upon  her  either 
with  word  or  look ;  for  every  one  learned  to 
know  her  shyness,  and  began  to  feel  a  per 
sonal  interest  in  her,  and  all  wanted  the 
little  convent  girl  to  see  everything  that 
she  possibly  could. 

And  it  was  worth  seeing — the  balancing 
and  chasseeing  and  waltzing  of  the  cumber 
some  old  boat  to  make  a  landing.  It  seemed 
to  be  always  attended  with  the  difficulty  and 
the  improbability  of  a  new  enterprise ;  and 
the  relief  when  it  did  sidle  up  anywhere 
within  rope's-throw  of  the  spot  aimed  at ! 
And  the  roustabout  throwing  the  rope  from 
the  perilous  end  of  the  dangling  gang-plank  ! 
And  the  dangling  roustabouts  hanging  like 
drops  of  water  from  it — dropping  sometimes 
twenty  feet  to  the  land,  and  not  infrequently 
into  the  river  itself.  And  then  what  a  roll 
ing  of  barrels,  and  shouldering  of  sacks,  and 
singing  of  Jim  Crow  songs,  and  pacing  of 
Jim  Crow  steps ;  and  black  skins  glistening 
through  torn  shirts,  and  white  teeth  gleaming 


152  BALCONY    STORIES 

through  red  lips,  and  laughing,  and  talking 
and — bewildering  !  entrancing  !  Surely  the 
little  convent  girl  in  her  convent  walls  never 
dreamed  of  so  much  unpunished  noise  and 
movement  in  the  world  ! 

The  first  time  she  heard  the  mate — it  must 
have  been  like  the  first  time  woman  ever 
heard  man  —  curse  and  swear,  she  turned 
pale,  and  ran  quickly,  quickly  into  the  saloon, 
and — came  out  again?  No,  indeed!  not  with 
all  the  soul  she  had  to  save,  and  all  the  other 
sins  on  her  conscience.  She  shook  her  head 
resolutely,  and  was  not  seen  in  her  chair 
on  deck  again  until  the  captain  not  only  re 
assured  her,  but  guaranteed  his  reassurance. 
And  after  that,  whenever  the  boat  was  about 
to  make  a  landing,  the  mate  would  first 
glance  up  to  the  guards,  and  if  the  little  con 
vent  girl  was  sitting  there  he  would  change 
his  invective  to  sarcasm,  and  politely  request 
the  colored  gentlemen  not  to  hurry  them 
selves — on  no  account  whatever;  to  take 
their  time  about  shoving  out  the  plank ;  to 
send  the  rope  ashore  -by  post-office — write 
him  when  it  got  there ;  begging  them  not 
to  strain  their  backs ;  calling  them  mister, 
colonel,  major,  general,  prince,  and  your  royal 


THE    LITTLE   CONVENT   GIRL  153 

highness,  which  was  vastly  amusing.  At 
night,  however,  or  when  the  little  convent 
girl  was  not  there,  language  flowed  in  its 
natural  curve,  the  mate  swearing  like  a 
pagan  to  make  up  for  lost  time. 

The  captain  forgot  himself  one  day  :  it  was 
when  the  boat  ran  aground  in  the  most  un 
expected  manner  and  place,  and  he  went  to 
work  to  express  his  opinion,  as  only  steamboat 
captains  can,  of  the  pilot,  mate,  engineer,  crew, 
boat,  river,  country,  and  the  world  in  general, 
ringing  the  bell,  first  to  back,  then  to  head, 
shouting  himself  hoarser  than  his  own  whistle 
— when  he  chanced  to  see  the  little  black 
figure  hurrying  through  the  chaos  on  the 
deck ;  and  the  captain  stuck  as  fast  aground 
in  midstream  as  the  boat  had  done. 

In  the  evening  the  little  convent  girl  would 
be  taken  on  the  upper  deck,  and  going  up 
the  steep  stairs  there  was  such  confusion,  to 
keep  the  black  skirts  well  over  the  stiff  white 
petticoats ;  and,  coming  clown,  such  blushing 
when  suspicion  would  cross  the  unprepared 
face  that  a  rim  of  white  stocking  might  be 
visible ;  and  the  thin  feet,  laced  so  tightly  in 
the  glossy  new  leather  boots,  would  cling  to 
each  successive  step  as  if  they  could  never, 


154  BALCONY    STORIES 

never  make  another  venture ;  and  then  one 
boot  would  (there  is  but  that  word)  hesitate 
out,  and  feel  and  feel  around,  and  have  such  a 
pause  of  helpless  agony  as  if  indeed  the  next 
step  must  have  been  wilfully  removed,  or  was 
nowhere  to  be  found  on  the  wide,  wide  earth. 

It  was  a  miracle  that  the  pilot  ever  got 
her  up  into  the  pilot-house  ;  but  pilots  have 
a  lonely  time,  and  do  not  hesitate  even  at 
miracles  when  there  is  a  chance  for  company. 
He  would  place  a  box  for  her  to  climb  to  the 
tall  bench  behind  the  wheel,  and  he  would 
arrange  the  cushions,  and  open  a  window 
here  to  let  in  air,  and  shut  one  there  to  cut 
off  a  draft,  as  if  there  could  be  no  tenderer 
consideration  in  life  for  him  than  her  comfort. 
And  he  would  talk  of  the  river  to  her,  explain 
the  chart,  pointing  out  eddies,  whirlpools, 
shoals,  depths,  new  beds,  old  beds,  cut-offs, 
caving  banks,  and  making  banks,  as  ex 
quisitely  and  respectfully  as  if  she  had  been 
the  River  Commission. 

It  was  his  opinion  that  there  was  as  great 
a  river  as  the  Mississippi  flowing  directly 
under  it — an  underself  of  a  river,  as  much  a 
counterpart  of  the  other  as  the  second  story 
of  a  house  is  of  the  first ;  in  fact,  he  said  they 


THE   LITTLE   CONVENT   GIRL  155 

were  navigating  through  the  upper  story. 
Whirlpools  were  holes  in  the  floor  of  the 
upper  river,  so  to  speak ;  eddies  were  rifts 
and  cracks.  And  deep  under  the  earth, 
hurrying  toward  the  subterranean  stream, 
were  other  streams,  small  and  great,  but  all 
deep,  hurrying  to  and  from  that  great  mother- 
stream  underneath,  just  as  the  small  and  great 
overground  streams  hurry  to  and  from  their 
mother  Mississippi.  It  was  almost  more  than 
the  little  convent  girl  could  take  in  :  at  least 
such  was  the  expression  of  her  eyes;  for  they 
opened  as  all  eyes  have  to  open  at  pilot 
stories.  And  he  knew  as  much  of  astronomy 
as  he  did  of  hydrology,  could  call  the  stars 
by  name,  and  define  the  shapes  of  the  con 
stellations  ;  and  she,  who  had  studied  astron 
omy  at  the  convent,  was  charmed  to  find 
that  what  she  had  learned  was  all  true.  It 
was  in  the  pilot-house,  one  night,  that  she 
forgot  herself  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  and 
stayed  up  until  after  nine  o'clock.  Although 
she  appeared  almost  intoxicated  at  the  wild 
pleasure,  she  was  immediately  overwhelmed 
at  the  wickedness  of  it,  and  observed  much 
more  rigidity  of  conduct  thereafter.  The 
engineer,  the  boiler-men,  the  firemen,  the 


156  BALCONY    STORIES 

stokers,  they  all  knew  when  the  little  convent 
girl  was  up  in  the  pilot-house :  the  speaking- 
tube  became  so  mild  and  gentle. 

With  all  the  delays  of  river  and  boat,  how 
ever,  there  is  an  end  to  the  journey  from  Cin 
cinnati  to  New  Orleans.  The  latter  city, 
which  at  one  time  to  the  impatient  seemed 
at  the  terminus  of  the  never,  began,  all  of  a 
sudden,  one  day  to  make  its  nearingness  felt ; 
and  from  that  period  every  other  interest 
paled  before  the  interest  in  the  immanence 
of  arrival  into  port,  and  the  whole  boat  was 
seized  with  a  panic  of  preparation,  the  little 
convent  girl  with  the  others.  Although  so 
immaculate  was  she  in  person  and  effects  that 
she  might  have  been  struck  with  a  landing, 
as  some  good  people  might  be  struck  with 
death,  at  any  moment  without  fear  of  results, 
her  trunk  was  packed  and  repacked,  her 
satchel  arranged  and  rearranged,  and,  the  last 
day,  her  hair  was  brushed  and  plaited  and 
smoothed  over  and  over  again  until  the  very 
last  glimmer  of  a  curl  disappeared.  Her  dress 
was  whisked,  as  if  for  microscopic  inspection  ; 
her  face  was  washed ;  and  her  finger-nails 
were  scrubbed  with  the  hard  convent  nail 
brush,  until  the  disciplined  little  tips  ached 


THE   LITTLE   CONVENT   GIRL  i$7 

with  a  pristine  soreness.  And  still  there  were 
hours  to  wait,  and  still  the  boat  added  up 
delays.  But  she  arrived  at  last,  after  all,  with 
not  more  than  the  usual  and  expected  differ 
ence  between  the  actual  and  the  advertised 
time  of  arrival. 

There  was  extra  blowing  and  extra  ringing, 
shouting,  commanding,  rushing  up  the  gang 
way  and  rushing  down  the  gangway.  The 
clerks,  sitting  behind  tables  on  the  first  deck, 
were  plied,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  with 
estimates,  receipts,  charges,  countercharges, 
claims,  reclaims,  demands,  questions,  accusa 
tions,  threats,  all  at  topmost  voices.  None  but 
steamboat  clerks  could  have  stood  it.  And 
there  were  throngs  composed  of  individuals 
every  one  of  whom  wanted  to  see  the  captain 
first  and  at  once  :  and  those  who  could  not  get 
to  him  shouted  over  the  heads  of  the  others ; 
and  as  usual  he  lost  his  temper  and  politeness, 
and  began  to  do  what  he  termed  "  hustle." 

"  Captain  !  Captain  !  "  a  voice  called  him  to 
where  a  hand  plucked  his  sleeve,  and  a  letter 
was  thrust  toward  him.  ''The  cross,  and  the 
name  of  the  convent."  He  recognized  the  en- 

o 

velop  of  the  mother  superior.  He  read  the 
duplicate  of  the  letter  given  by  the  sisters. 


158  BALCONY    STORIES 

He  looked  at  the  woman  —  the  mother — 
casually,  then  again  and  again. 

The  little  convent  girl  saw  him  coming, 
leading  some  one  toward  her.  She  rose.  The 
captain  took  her  hand  first,  before  the  other 
greeting,  "  Good-by,  my  clear,"  he  said.  He 
tried  to  add  something  else,  but  seemed  un 
determined  what.  "  Be  a  good  little  girl — " 
It  was  evidently  all  he  could  think  of.  Nod 
ding  to  the  woman  behind  him,  he  turned  on 
his  heel,  and  left. 

One  of  the  deck-hands  was  sent  to  fetch 
her  trunk.  He  walked  out  behind  them, 
through  the  cabin,  and  the  crowd  on  deck, 
down  the  stairs,  and  out  over  the  gangway. 
The  little  convent  girl  and  her  mother  went 
with  hands  tightly  clasped.  She  did  not  turn 
her  eyes  to  the  right  or  left,  or  once  (what 
all  passengers  do)  look  backward  at  the  boat 
which,  however  slowly,  had  carried  her  surely 
over  dangers  that  she  wot  not  of.  All  looked 
at  her  as  she  passed.  All  wanted  to  say  good- 
by  to  the  little  convent  girl,  to  see  the  mother 
who  had  been  deprived  of  her  so  long.  Some 
expressed  surprise  in  a  whistle;  some  in  other 
ways.  All  exclaimed  audibly,  or  to  them 
selves,  "  Colored  !  " 


THE    LITTLE    CONVENT    GIRL  159 

IT  takes  about  a  month  to  make  the  round 
trip  from  New  Orleans  to  Cincinnati  and  back, 
counting  five  days'  stoppage  in  New  Orleans. 
It  was  a  month  to  a  day  when  the  steamboat 
came  puffing  and  blowing  up  to  the  wharf 
again,  like  a  stout  dowager  after  too  long  a 
walk  ;  and  the  same  scene  of  confusion  was 
enacted,  as  it  had  been  enacted  twelve  times 
a  year,  at  almost  the  same  wharf  for  twenty 
years ;  and  the  same  calm,  a  death  calmness  by 
contrast,  followed  as  usual  the  next  morning. 

The  decks  were  quiet  and  clean;  one  cargo 
had  just  been  delivered,  part  of  another  stood 
ready  on  the  levee  to  be  shipped.  The  cap 
tain  was  there  waiting  for  his  business  to 
begin,  the  clerk  was  in  his  office  getting  his 
books  ready,  the  voice  of  the  mate  could  be 
heard  below,  mustering  the  old  crew  out  and 
a  new  crew  in  ;  for  if  steamboat  crews  have 
a  single  principle, — and  there  are  those  who 
deny  them  any, — it  is  never  to  ship  twice  in 
succession  on  the  same  boat.  It  was  too 
early  yet  for  any  but  roustabouts,  marketers, 
and  church-goers;  so  early  that  even  the 
river  was  still  partly  mist-covered ;  only  in 
places  could  the  swift,  dark  current  be  seen 
rolling  swiftly  along. 


160  BALCONY    STORIES 

"  Captain  !  "  A  hand  plucked  at  his  elbow, 
as  if  not  confident  that  the  mere  calling  would 
secure  attention.  The  captain  turned.  The 
mother  of  the  little  convent  girl  stood  there, 
and  she  held  the  little  convent  girl  by  the 
hand.  "  I  have  brought  her  to  see  you,"  the 
woman  said.  "  You  were  so  kind — and  she 
is  so  quiet,  so  still,  all  the  time,  I  thought  it 
would  do  her  a  pleasure." 

She  spoke  with  an  accent,  and  with  embar 
rassment;  otherwise  one  would  have  said  that 
she  was  bold  and  assured  enough. 

"  She  don't  go  nowhere,  she  don't  do  no 
thing  but  make  her  crochet  and  her  prayers, 
so  I  thought  I  would  bring  her  for  a  little  visit 
of  '  How  d'  ye  do '  to  you." 

There  was,  perhaps,  some  inflection  in  the 
woman's  voice  that  might  have  made  known, 
or  at  least  awakened,  the  suspicion  of  some 
latent  hope  or  intention,  had  the  captain's  ear 
been  fine  enough  to  detect  it.  There  might 
have  been  something  in  the  little  convent 
girl's  face,  had  his  eye  been  more  sensitive — 
a  trifle  paler,  maybe,  the  lips  a  little  tighter 
drawn,  the  blue  ribbon  a  shade  faded.  He 
may  have  noticed  that,  but—  And  the  visit 
of  "  How  cl'  ye  do"  came  to  an  end. 


THE   LITTLE    CONVENT    GIRL  161 

They  walked  down  the  stairway,  the  woman 
in  front,  the  little  convent  girl — her  hand  re 
leased  to  shake  hands  with  the  captain  — 
following,  across  the  bared  deck,  out  to  the 
gangway,  over  to  the  middle  of  it.  No  one 
was  looking,  no  one  saw  more  than  a  flutter 
of  white  petticoats,  a  show  of  white  stockings, 
as  the  little  convent  girl  went  under  the  water. 

The  roustabout  dived,  as  the  roustabouts 
always  do,  after  the  drowning,  even  at  the 
risk  of  their  good-for-nothing  lives.  The 
mate  himself  jumped  overboard;  but  she  had 
gone  down  in  a  whirlpool.  Perhaps,  as  the 
pilot  had  told  her  whirlpools  always  did,  it 
may  have  carried  her  through  to  the  under 
ground  river,  to  that  vast,  hidden,  dark  Mis 
sissippi  that  flows  beneath  the  one  we  see ; 
for  her  body  was  never  found. 


GRANDMOTHER'S  GRANDMOTHER 


GRANDMOTHER'S  GRANDMOTHER 

A">   the  grandmother  related  it  fresh  from 
the  primeval  sources  that  feed  a  grand 
mother's  memory,  it  happened  thus : 

In  the  early  days  of  the  settlement  of 
Georgia — ah,  how  green  and  rustic  appears 
to  us  now  the  world  in  the  early  days  of  the 
settlement  of  Georgia  !  Sometimes  to  women, 
listening  to  the  stories  of  their  grandmothers, 
it  seems  better  to  have  lived  then  than  now 
— her  grandmother  was  at  that  time  a  young 
wife.  It  was  the  day  of  arduous,  if  not  of 
long,  courtship  before  marriage,  when  every 
wedding  celebrated  the  close  of  an  original 
romance  ;  and  when  young  couples,  for  bridal 
trips,  went  out  to  settle  new  States,  riding 
on  a  pillion  generally,  with  their  trousseaux 
following  as  best  they  could  on  sumpter 
mules ;  to  hear  the  grandmother  describe  it 

made  one  long  to  be  a  bride  of  those  days. 

ii*  165 


1 66  BALCONY    STORIES 

The  young  husband  had  the  enumeration 
of  qualities  that  went  to  the  making  of  a  man 
of  that  period,  and  if  the  qualities  were  in  the 
proportion  of  ten  physical  to  one  intellectual, 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  grandmother's 
grandfather  was  not  a  man  of  parts.  For,  to 
obtain  the  hand  of  his  bride,  an  only  child 
and  an  heiress,  he  had  to  give  test  of  his 
mettle  by  ignoring  his  fortune,  studying  law, 
and  getting  his  license  before  marriage,  and 
binding  himself  to  live  the  first  year  after 
ward  on  the  proceeds  of  his  practice;  a  device 
of  the  time  thought  to  be  a  wholesome  cor 
rective  of  the  corrupting  influence  of  over- 
wealth  in  young  domesticities. 

Although  he  had  already  chosen  the  sea 
for  his  profession,  and  was  a  midshipman  at 
the  time,  with  more  of  a  reputation  for  living 
than  for  learning,  such  was  he,  and  such,  it 
may  be  said,  was  the  incentive  genius  of  his 
choice,  that  almost  before  his  resignation  as 
midshipman  was  accepted,  his  license  as  a 
lawyer  was  signed.  As  for  practice,  it  was 
currently  remarked  at  his  wedding,  at  the 
sight  of  him  flying  down  the  room  in  the  reel 
with  his  bride  for  partner,  that  his  tongue 
was  as  nimble  as  his  heels,  and  that  if  he  only 


GRANDMOTHER'S  GRANDMOTHER     167 

turned  his  attention  to  criminal  practice,  there 
was  no  man  in  the  country  who  would  make 
a  better  prosecuting  attorney  for  the  State. 
And  with  him  for  prosecuting  attorney,  it 
was  warranted  that  sirrahs  the  highwaymen 
would  not  continue  to  hold  Georgia  judge  - 
and-jury  justice  in  quite  such  contemptible 
estimation,  and  that  the  gallows  would  not  be 
left  so  long  bereft  of  their  legitimate  swing 
ings.  As  for  fees,  it  was  predicted  that 
the  young  fellow  as  he  stood,  or  rather 
"chasse'd,"  could  snap  his  fingers  at  both  his 
and  his  bride's  trustees. 

He  did  turn  his  attention  to  criminal  law, 
was  made  prosecuting  attorney  for  the  State 
in  his  county,  and,  before  his  six  months  had 
passed,  was  convincing  the  hitherto  high  and 
mighty,  lordly,  independent  knights  of  the 
road  that  other  counties  in  Georgia  furnished 
more  secure  pasturage  for  them. 

It  was  a  beautiful  spring  morning.  The 
young  wife  bade  him  a  hearty  good-by,  and 
stood  in  the  doorway  watching  him,  gay  and 
debonair,  riding  off,  on  his  stout  black 
charger  Beetle,  in  the  direction  of  the  town 
in  which  court  was  to  be  held  that  week. 

She  herself  feeling  as  full  of  ambition  and 


1 68  BALCONY    STORIES 

work  as  if  she  also  were  prosecuting  attorney, 
with  a  perennial  spring  of  eloquence  bubbling 
in  her  brain,  turned  to  her  domestic  duties, 
and,  without  going  into  the  detail  of  them,  it 
suffices  to  say  that,  according  to  the  grand 
mother's  estimation,  one  morning's  list  of 
duties  for  a  healthy  young  bride  of  that 
period  would  shame  the  week's  work  of  a 
syndicate  of  them  to-day.  Finding  herself 
nearing  the  limit  of  diminution  of  several 
household  necessities,  and  the  spring  sug 
gesting  the  beginning  of  new  ones,  she  made 
up  her  mind  to  profit  by  her  husband's 
absence  and  the  fair  weather  to  make  a  trad 
ing  visit  to  the  neighboring  town  next  day. 

So,  early  in  a  morning  as  beautiful  as  the 
preceding  one,  mounted  on  her  own  stanch 
mare  Maid  Marion,  she  ambled  down  the 
green  over-hung  forest-road,  in  the  vista  of 
which  she  had  watched  her  husband  disappear 
the  day  before ;  thinking  about  what  she  had 
to  buy,  and  thinking,  no  doubt,  much  more, 
as  brides  will,  of  the  absent  lord  and  master 
— as  brides  of  those  days  loved  to  consider 
and  denominate  their  husbands. 

Coming  into  the  little  town,  the  freshly 
painted,  swinging  sign-board  of  the  new  tav- 


"TURNED    TO    HER    DOMESTIC    DUTIES. 


GRANDMOTHER'S  GRANDMOTHER     171 

ern,  ''The  Honest  Georgian,"  as  usual  was 
the  thing  to  catch  her  eye;  but  the  instant 
after  what  should  she  see  but  Black  Beetle 
hitched  to  the  rack  under  the  tree  that  shad 
owed  the  hostelry  ! 

It  was  not  decorous;  but  she  was  young, 
and  the  day  of  her  first  separation  from  her 
husband  had  been  so  long ;  and  was  he  not 
also,  against  the  firmest  of  resolutions  and 
plans,  hastening  back  to  her,  the  separation 
being  too  long  for  him  also  ? 

Slipping  her  foot  from  the  stirrup,  she 
jumped  to  the  ground,  and  ran  into  the  tavern. 
There  he  stood  calling  hastily  for  a  drink  ; 
and  her  heart  more  than  her  eyes  took  in  his, 
to  her,  consecrated  signalment — the  riding- 
boots,  short  -clothes,  blue  coat,  cocked  hat, 
ruffles.  She  crept  up  behind  to  surprise  him, 
her  face,  with  its  delight  and  smiles,  beyond 
her  control.  She  crept,  until  she  saw  his 
watch-fob  dangling  against  the  counter,  and 
then  her  heart  made  a  call.  He  turned.  He 
was  not  her  husband  !  Another  man  was  in 
her  husband's  clothes,  a  man  with  a  villainous 
countenance !  With  a  scream  she  gave  the 
alarm.  The  stranger  turned,  dropped  his 
drink,  bounded  to  the  door  and  out,  leaped  to 


172  BALCONY    STORIES 

the  back  of  Beetle,  gave  rein  and  spur,  and 
the  black  horse  made  good  his  reputation. 
In  a  second  all  was  hue-and-cry  and  pursuit. 
While  men  and  horses  made,  for  all  they  were 
worth,  down  the  road  after  Beetle,  she  on 
Maid  Marion  galloped  for  her  life  in  the  oppo 
site  direction,  the  direction  of  the  court  town 
whither  her  husband  had  journeyed.  The 
mare's  hide  made  acquaintance  with  the  whip 
that  day  if  never  before,  for  not  even  the  will 
ing  Maid  Marion  could  keep  pace  with  the 
apprehensions  on  her  back. 

Scouring  with  her  eyes  the  highway  ahead 
of  her,  shooting  hawk's  glances  into  the  forest 
on  each  side  of  her,  the  wife  rode  through 
the  distance  all,  all  day,  praying  that  the  day 
might  be  long  enough,  might  equal  the  dis 
tance.  The  sun  set,  and  night  began  to  fall ; 
but  she  and  Maid  Marion  were  none  the  less 
fresh,  except  in  the  heart. 

The  moon  rose  straight  before  them  down 
the  road,  lighting  it  and  them  through  the 
threatened  obscurity.  And  so  they  came  to 
trarhpled  earth  and  torn  grass,  and  so  she  un 
covered  concealed  footsteps,  and  so,  creeping 
on  her  hands  and  knees,  she  followed  traces 
of  blood,  through  thicket  and  glade,  into  the 


GRANDMOTHER'S  GRANDMOTHER     173 

deep  forest,  to  a  hastily  piled  hillock  of 
earth,  gravel,  and  leaves.  Burrowing  with  her 
hands,  she  came  to  it,  the  naked  body  of  her 
young  husband,  cold  and  stiff,  foully  murdered. 
Maid  Marion  approached  at  her  call.  She 
wrapped  him  in  her  cloak,  and — a  young 
wife  of  those  times  alone  would  do  it — put 
him  in  the  saddle  before  her  :  the  good  mare 
Maid  Marion  alone  knows  the  rest.  In  the 
early  gray  dawn,  from  one  highway  there  rode 
into  the  town  the  baffled  pursuers,  from  the 
other  the  grandmother's  grandmother,  clasp 
ing  the  corpse  of  her  husband  with  arms  as 
stiff  as  his  own  ;  loving  him,  so  the  grand 
mother  used  to  say,  with  a  love  which,  if 
ever  love  could  do  so,  would  have  effected  a 
resurrection. 


THE    OLD    LADY'S   RESTORATION 


THE   OLD    LADY'S    RESTORATION 

THE  news  came  out  in  the  papers  that 
the  old  lady  had  been  restored  to  her 
fortune.  She  had  been  deprived  of  it  so 
long  ago  that  the  real  manner  of  her  dispos 
session  had  become  lost,  or  at  least  hidden 
under  the  many  versions  that  had  been  in 
vented  to  replace  lapses  of  memory,  or  to 
remedy  the  unpicturesqueness  of  the  original 
truth.  The  face  of  truth,  like  the  face  of 
many  a  good  woman,  is  liable  to  the  accident 
of  ugliness,  and  the  desire  to  embellish  one 
as  well  as  the  other  need  not  necessarily 
proceed  from  anything  more  harmful  than 
an  overweighted  love  of  the  beautiful. 

If  the  old  lady  had  not  been  restored  to 
her  fortune,  her  personalia  would  have  re 
mained  in  the  oblivion  which,  as  one  might 
say,  had  accumulated  upon  everything  be 
longing  to  her.  But  after  that  newspaper 
paragraph,  there  was  such  a  flowering  of 


iy8  BALCONY    STORIES 

memory  around  her  name  as  would  have 
done  credit  to  a  whole  cemetery  on  All 
Saints.  It  took  three  generations  to  do 
justice  to  the  old  lady,  for  so  long  and  so 
slow  had  been  her  descent  into  poverty  that 
a  grandmother  was  needed  to  remember  her 
setting  out  upon  the  road  to  it. 

She  set  out  as  most  people  do,  well  pro 
vided  with  money,  diamonds,  pretty  clothing, 
handsome  residence,  equipage,  opera-box, 
beaus  (for  she  was  a  widow),  and  so  many, 
many  friends  that  she  could  never  indulge 
in  a  small  party — she  always  had  to  give 
a  grand  ball  to  accommodate  them.  She 
made  quite  an  occasion  of  her  first  reverse, — 
some  litigation  decided  against  her, —  and 
said  it  came  from  the  court's  having  only 
one  ear,  and  that  preempted  by  the  other 
party. 

She  always  said  whatever  she  thought,  re 
gardless  of  the  consequences,  because  she 
averred  truth  was  so  much  more  interesting 
than  falsehood.  Nothing  annoyed  her  more 
in  society  than  to  have  to  listen  to  the  com 
positions  women  make  as  a  substitute  for 
the  original  truth.  It  was  as  if,  when  she 
went  to  the  theater  to  hear  Shakspere  and 


THE    OLD    LADY'S    RESTORATION  179 

Moliere,  the  actors  should  try  to  impose  upon 
the  audience  by  reciting  lines  of  their  own. 
Truth  was  the  wit  of  life  and  the  wit  of 
books.  She  traveled  her  road  from  affluence 
so  leisurely  that  nothing  escaped  her  eyes 
or  her  feelings,  and  she  signaled  unhesitat 
ingly  every  stage  in  it. 

"  My  clear,  do  you  know  there  is  really 
such  a  thing  as  existence  without  a  carriage 
and  horses?"  —  "I  assure  you  it  is  perfectly 
new  to  me  to  find  that  an  opera-box  is  not 
a  necessity.  It  is  a  luxury.  In  theory  one 
can  really  never  tell  the  distinction  between 
luxuries  and  necessities." — ''How  absurd! 
At  one  time  I  thought  hair  was  given  us 
only  to  furnish  a  profession  to  hair-dressers ; 
just  as  we  wear  artificial  flowers  to  support 
the  flower-makers."  —  "Upon  my  word,  it 
is  not  uninteresting.  There  is  always  some 
haute  nouveaute  in  economy.  The  ways  of 
depriving  one's  self  are  infinite.  There  is 
wine,  now."  —  "Not  own  your  residence! 
As  soon  not  own  your  tomb  as  your  resi 
dence  !  My  mama  used  to  scream  that  in 
my  ears.  According  to  her,  it  was  not 
comme  il  faut  to  board  or  live  in  a  rented 
house.  How  little  she  knew  !  " 


i8o  BALCONY    STORIES 

When  her  friends,  learning  her  increasing 
difficulties,  which  they  did  from  the  best  au 
thority  (herself),  complimented  her,  as  they 
were  forced  to  do,  upon  her  still  handsome 
appearance,  pretty  laces,  feathers,  jewelry, 
silks,  "  Fat,"  she  would  answer — "fat.  I  am 
living  off  my  fat,  as  bears  do  in  winter.  In 
truth,  I  remind  myself  of  an  animal  in  more 
ways  than  one." 

And  so  every  one  had  something  to  con 
tribute  to  the  conversation  about  her — bits 
which,  they  said,  affection  and  admiration 
had  kept  alive  in  their  memory. 

Each  city  has  its  own  roads  to  certain  ends, 
its  ways  of  Calvary,  so  to  speak.  In  New 
Orleans  the  victim  seems  ever  to  walk  down 
Royal  street  and  up  Chartres,  or  vice  versa. 
One  would  infer  so,  at  least,  from  the  display 
in  the  shops  and  windows  of  those  thorough 
fares.  Old  furniture,  cut  glass,  pictures, 
books,  jewelry,  lace,  china — the  fleece  (some 
times  the  flesh  still  sticking  to  it)  left  on  the 
brambles  by  the  driven  herd.  If  there  should 
some  day  be  a  trump  of  resurrection  for  de 
funct  fortunes,  those  shops  would  be  emptied 
in  the  same  twinkling  of  the  eye  allowed  to 
tombs  for  their  rendition  of  property. 


THE   OLD    LADY'S    RESTORATION  181 

The  old  lady  must  have  made  that  prome 
nade  many,  many  times,  to  judge  by  the  sam 
ples  of  her  "fat  or  fleece"  displayed  in  the 
windows.  She  took  to  hobbling,  as  if  from 
tired  or  sore  feet. 

"  It  is  nothing,"  in  answer  to  an  inquiry. 
"  Made-to-order  feet  learning  to  walk  in 
ready-made  shoes  :  that  is  all.  One's  feet, 
after  all,  are  the  most  unintelligent  part  of 
one's  body."  Tea  was  her  abomination,  cof 
fee  her  adoration;  but  she  explained:  "Tea, 
you  know,  is  so  detestable  that  the  very 
worst  is  hardly  worse  than  the  very  best ; 
while  coffee  is  so  perfect  that  the  smallest 
shade  of  impurity  is  not  to  be  tolerated.  The 
truly  economical,  I  observe,  always  drink  tea." 
"At  one  time  I  thought  if  all  the  luxuries  of 
the  world  were  exposed  to  me,  and  but  one 
choice  allowed,  I  should  select  gloves.  Be 
lieve  me,  there  is  no  superfluity  in  the  world 
so  easily  dispensed  with." 

As  may  be  supposed,  her  path  led  her 
farther  and  farther  away  from  her  old  friends. 
Even  her  intimates  became  scarce  ;  so  much 
so,  that  these  observations,  which,  of  course, 
could  be  made  only  to  intimates,  became 
fewer  and  fewer,  unfortunately,  for  her  cir- 


182  BALCONY    STORIES 

cumstances  were  becoming  such  that  the 
remarks  became  increasingly  valuable.  The 
last  thing  related  of  her  was  apropos  of 
friends. 

"  My  friends  !  My  dear,  I  Cannot  tell  you 
just  so,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  but  with 
a  little  reflection  and  calculation  I  could  tell 
you,  to  a  picayune,  the  rent  of  every  friend 
in  the  market.  You  can  lease,  rent,  or  hire 
them,  like  horses,  carriages,  opera-boxes,  ser 
vants,  by  year,  month,  day,  or  hour ;  and  the 
tariff  is  just  as  fixed. 

"  Christians  !  Christians  are  the  most  dis 
creet  people  in  the  world.  If  you  should  ask 
me  what  Christianity  has  most  promoted  in 
the  world,  I  should  answer  without  hesitation, 
discretion.  Of  course,  when  I  say  the  world 
I  mean  society,  and  when  I  say  Christianity  I 
mean  our  interpretation  of  it.  If  only  duns 
could  be  pastors,  and  pastors  duns !  But  of 
course  you  do  not  know  what  duns  are  ;  they 
are  the  guardian  angels  of  the  creditor,  the 
pursuing  fiends  of  the  debtor." 

After  that,  the  old  lady  made  her  disap 
pearance  under  the  waves  of  that  sea  into  the 
depths  of  which  it  is  very  improbable  that  a 
single  friend  ever  attempted  to  pursue  her. 


THE   OLD   LADY'S   RESTORATION  183 

And  there  she  remained  until  the  news  came 
that  she  was  restored  to  fortune. 

A  week  passed,  two  weeks ;  no  sight  or 
sound  of  her.  It  was  during  this  period  that 
her  old  friends  were  so  occupied  resuscitating 
their  old  friendships  for  her — when  all  her 
antique  sayings  and  doings  became  current 
ball-room  and  dinner-table  gossip — that  she 
arose  from  her  obscurity  like  Cinderella  from 
her  ashes,  to  be  decked  with  every  gift  that 
fairy  minds  could  suggest.  Those  who  had 
known  her  intimately  made  no  effort  to  con 
ceal  their  importance.  Those  who  did  not 
know  her  personally  put  forward  claims  of 
inherited  friendship,  and  those  who  did  not 
know  her  traditionally  or  otherwise — the 
nouveaux  riches  and  parvenus,  who  alone 
feel  the  moneyed  value  of  such  social  connec 
tions — began  making  their  resolutions  to 
capture  her  as  soon  as  she  came  in  sight  of 
society. 

The  old  residence  was  to  be  rebought,  and 
refurnished  from  France ;  the  avant  scene  at 
the  opera  had  been  engaged ;  the  old  cook 
was  to  be  hired  back  from  the  club  at  a  fabu 
lous  price ;  the  old  balls  and  the  old  dinners 
were  to  gladden  the  city  —  so  said  they  who 


184  BALCONY    STORIES 

seemed  to  know.  Nothing  was  to  be  spared, 
nothing  stinted — at  her  age,  with  no  child  or 
relative,  and  life  running  short  for  pleasure. 
Diamonds,  laces,  velvets,  champagne,  Chateau 
Yquem — "  Grand  Dieu  Seigneur!"  the  old 
Creole  servants  exclaimed,  raising  their  hands 
at  the  enumeration  of  it. 

Where  the  news  came  from  nobody  knew, 
but  everything  was  certified  and  accepted  as 
facts,  although,  as  between  women,  the  grain 
of  salt  should  have  been  used.  Impatience 
waxed,  until  nearly  every  day  some  one 
would  ring  the  bell  of  the  old  residence,  to 
ask  when  the  mistress  was  going  to  move  in. 
And  such  affectionate  messages  !  And  people 
would  not,  simply  could  not,  be  satisfied  with 
the  incomprehensible  answers.  And  then  it 
leaked  out.  The  old  lady  was  simply  waiting 
for  everything  to  arrive  —  furniture,  toilets, 
carriage,  etc. — to  make  a  grand  entree  into 
her  old  sphere ;  to  come  riding  on  a  throne, 
as  it  were.  And  still  the  time  passed,  and 
she  did  not  come.  Finally  two  of  the  clever- 
heads  penetrated  the  enigma  :  mauvaise 
honte,  shyness  —  so  long  out  of  the  world,  so 
old ;  perhaps  not  sure  of  her  welcome.  So 
they  determined  to  seek  her  out. 


THE    OLD    LADY'S    RESTORATION  187 

"We  will  go  to  her,  like  children  to  a 
grandmother,  etc.  The  others  have  no 
delicacy  of  sentiment,  etc.  And  she  will 
thus  learn  who  really  remember,  really 
love  her,  etc." 

Provided  with  congratulatory  bouquets, 
they  set  forth.  It  is  very  hard  to  find  a 
dweller  on  the  very  sea-bottom  of  poverty. 
Perhaps  that  is  why  the  effort  is  so  seldom 
made.  One  has  to  ask  at  grocers'  shops, 
groggeries,  market-stalls,  Chinese  restau 
rants  ;  interview  corner  cobblers,  ragpickers, 
gutter  children.  But  nothing  is  impossible  to 
the  determined.  The  two  ladies  overcame 
all  obstacles,  and  needled  their  way  along, 
where  under  other  circumstances  they  would 
not  have  glanced,  would  have  thought  it 
improper  to  glance. 

They  were  directed  through  an  old,  old 
house,  out  on  an  old,  old  gallery,  to  a  room 
at  the  very  extreme  end. 

"  Poor  thing!  Evidently  she  has  not  heard 
the  good  news  yet.  We  will  be  the  first  to 
communicate  it,"  they  whispered,  standing 
before  the  dilapidated,  withered-looking  door. 

Before  knocking,  they  listened,  as  it  is  the 
very  wisdom  of  discretion  to  do.  There  was 


1 88  BALCONY    STORIES 

life  inside,  a  little  kind  of  voice,  like  some  one 
trying  to  hum  a  song  with  a  very  cracked  old 
throat. 

The  ladies  opened  the  door.  "Ah,  my 
friend!" 

"  Ah,  my  friend!" 

"  Restored  !  " 

"  Restored  !  " 

"  At  last !  " 

"  At  last !  " 

"  Just  the  same  !  " 

"  Exactly  the  same  !  " 

It  was  which  one  would  get  to  her  first 
with  bouquet  and  kiss,  competition  almost 
crowding  friendship. 

"  The  good  news  !  " 

"  The  good  news  !  " 

o 

"  We  could  not  stay  !  " 
"We  had  to  come  !  " 
"  It  has  arrived  at  last !  " 
"  At  last  it  has  arrived  !  " 
The  old  lady  was  very  much  older,  but  still 
the  same. 

"  You  will  again  have  a  chance  !  " 
"  Restored  to  your  friends  !  " 
"  The  world  !  " 
"  Your  luxuries  !  " 


THE    OLD    LADY'S    RESTORATION  189 

"  Your  comforts  !  " 

"  Comforts  !  Luxuries  !  "  At  last  the  old 
lady  had  an  opportunity  to  slip  in  a  word. 
"  And  friends !  You  say  right." 

There  was  a  pause — a  pause  which  held 
not  a  small  measure  of  embarrassment.  But 
the  two  visitors,  although  they  were  women 
of  the  world,  and  so  dreaded  an  embarrass 
ment  more  than  they  did  sin,  had  prepared 
themselves  even  to  stand  this. 

The  old  lady  standing  there — she  was  very 
much  thinner,  very  much  bent,  but  still  the 
same — appeared  to  be  looking  not  at  them, 
but  at  their  enumeration. 

"  Comfort !  "  She  opened  a  pot  bubbling 
on  the  fire.  "Bouillon!  A  good  five-cent 
bouillon.  Luxury  !  "  She  picked  up  some 
thing  from  a  chair,  a  handful  of  new  cotton 
chemises.  "  Luxury  !  "  She  turned  back  her 
bedspread:  new  cotton  sheets.  "Did  you 
ever  lie  in  your  bed  at  night  and  dream  of 
sheets  ?  Comfort !  Luxury  !  I  should  say  so  ! 
And  friends !  My  dear,  look ! "  Opening  her 
door,  pointing  to  an  opposite  gallery,  to  the 
yard,  her  own  gallery ;  to  the  washing,  iron 
ing,  sewing  women,  the  cobbling,  chair- 
making,  carpentering  men  ;  to  the  screaming, 


190  BALCONY    STORIES 

laughing,  crying,  quarreling,  swarming  chil 
dren.  "  Friends  !  All  friends  —  friends  for 
fifteen  years.  Ah,  yes,  indeed !  We  are  all 
glad — elated  in  fact.  As  you  say.  I  am 
restored." 

The  visitors  simply  reported  that  they  had 
found  the  old  lady,  and  that  she  was  imbecile; 
mind  completely  gone  under  stress  of  pov 
erty  and  old  age.  Their  opinion  was  that 
she  should  be  interdicted. 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR 

BUT  what  does  this  extraordinary  display 
of  light  mean?"  ejaculated  my  aunt,  the 
moment  she  entered  the  parlor  from  the  din 
ing-room.  "  It  looks  like  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  in  here!  Jules!  Jules!"  she  called, 
(<  come  and  put  out  some  of  the  light !  " 

Jules  was  at  the  front  door  letting  in  the 
usual  Wednesday-evening  visitor,  but  now  he 
came  running  in  immediately  with  his  own 
invention  in  the  way  of  a  gas-stick, — a  piece 
of  broom-handle  notched  at  the  end, — and 
began  turning  one  tap  after  the  other,  until 
the  room  was  reduced  to  complete  darkness. 

"But  what  do  you  mean  now,  Jules?" 
screamed  the  old  lady  again. 

"  Pardon,  madame,"  answered  Jules,  with 
dignity  ;  "  it  is  an  accident.  I  thought  there 
was  one  still  lighted." 

"  An  accident !  An  accident !  Do  you 
think  I  hire  you  to  perform  accidents  for  me  ? 
13  193 


194  BALCONY    STORIES 

You  are  just  through  telling  me  that  it  was 
accident  made  you  give  me  both  soup  and 
gumbo  for  dinner  to-day." 

"  But  accidents  can  always  happen,  ma- 
dame,"  persisted  Jules,  adhering  to  his  posi 
tion. 

The  chandelier,  a  design  of  originality  in  its 
day,  gave  light  by  what  purported  to  be  wax 
candles  standing  each  in  a  circlet  of  pendent 
crystals.  The  usual  smile  of  ecstatic  admi 
ration  spread  over  Jules's  features  as  he 
touched  the  match  to  the  simulated  wicks, 
and  lighted  into  life  the  rainbows  in  the  prisms 
underneath.  It  was  a  smile  that  did  not  heigh 
ten  the  intelligence  of  his  features,  revealing 
as  it  did  the  toothless  condition  of  his  gums. 

"What  will  madame  have  for  her  dinner 
to-morrow,"  looking  benignantly  at  his  mis 
tress,  and  still  standing  under  his  aureole. 

"  Do  I  ever  give  orders  for  one  dinner, 
with  the  other  one  still  on  my  lips  ?  " 

"I  only  asked  madame;  there  is  no  harm 
in  asking."  He  walked  away,  his  long  stiff 
white  apron  rattling  like  a  petticoat  about 
him.  Catching  sight  of  the  visitor  still  stand 
ing  at  the  threshold  :  "  Oh,  madame,  here  is 
Mr.  Horace.  Shall  I  let  him  in  ?  " 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  195 

"  Idiot !  Every  Wednesday  you  ask  me 
that  question,  and  every  Wednesday  I  answer 
the  same  way.  Don't  you  think  I  could  tell 
you  when  not  to  let  him  in  without  your 
asking  ?  " 

"  Oh,  well,  madame,  one  never  knows;  it 
is  always  safe  to  ask." 

The  appearance  of  the  gentleman  started  a 
fresh  subject  of  excitement. 

"  Jules  !  Jules  !  You  have  left  that  front 
door  unlocked  again  !  " 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  Mr.  Horace;  "Jules  did 
not  leave  the  front  door  unlocked.  It  was 
locked  when  I  rang,  and  he  locked  it  again 
most  carefully  after  letting  me  in.  I  have 
been  standing  outside  all  the  while  the  gas 
was  being  extinguished  and  relighted." 

"  Ah,  very  well,  then.  And  what  is  the 
news?"  She  sank  into  her  arm-chair,  pulled 
her  little  card-table  closer,  and  began  shuf 
fling  the  cards  upon  it  for  her  game  of 
solitaire.  "  I  never  hear  any  news,  you 
know.  She  [nodding  toward  me]  goes  out, 
but  she  never  learns  anything.  She  is  as 
stupid  to-night  as  an  empty  bottle." 

After  a  few  passes  her  hands,  which  were 
slightly  tremulous,  regained  some  of  their 


196  BALCONY    STORIES 

wonted  steadiness  and  brilliancy  of  move 
ment,  and  the  cards  dropped  rapidly  on  the 
table.  Mr.  Horace,  as  he  had  got  into  the 
habit  of  doing,  watched  her  mechanically, 
rather  absent-mindedly  retailing  what  he 
imagined  would  interest  her,  from  his  week's 
observation  and  hearsay.  And  madame's 
little  world  revolved,  complete  for  her,  in 
time,  place,  and  personality. 

It  was  an  old-fashioned  square  room  with 
long  ceiling,  and  broad,  low  windows  heavily 
curtained  with  stiff  silk  brocade,  faded  by 
time  into  mellowness.  The  tall  white-painted 
mantel  carried  its  obligation  of  ornaments 
well :  a  gilt  clock  which  under  a  glass  case 
related  some  brilliant  poetical  idyl,  and  told 
the  hours  only  in  an  insignificant  aside,  ac 
cording  to  the  delicate  politeness  of  bygone 
French  taste ;  flanked  by  duplicate  continua 
tions  of  the  same  idyl  in  companion  cande 
labra,  also  under  glass ;  Sevres,  or  imitation 
Sevres  vases,  and  a  crowd  of  smaller  objects 
to  which  age  and  rarity  were  slowly  con 
tributing  an  artistic  value.  An  oval  mirror 
behind  threw  replicas  of  them  into  another 
mirror,  receiving  in  exchange  the  reflected 
portrait  of  madame  in  her  youth,  and  in  the 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  197 

partial  nudity  in  which  innocence  was  limned 
in  madame's  youth.  There  were  besides 
mirrors  on  the  other  three,  walls  of  the  room, 
all  hung  with  such  careful  intent  for  the  ex 
ercise  of  their  vocation  that  the  apartment, 
in  spots,  extended  indefinitely ;  the  brilliant 
chandelier  was  thereby  quadrupled,  and  the 
furniture  and  ornaments  multiplied  every 
where  and  most  unexpectedly  into  twins  and 
triplets,  producing  such  sociabilities  among 
them,  and  forcing  such  correspondences  be 
tween  inanimate  objects  with  such  hospitable 
insistence,  that  the  effect  was  full  of  gaiety 
and  life,  although  the  interchange  in  reality 
was  the  mere  repetition  of  one  original,  a 
kind  of  phonographic  echo. 

The  portrait  of  monsieur,  madame's  hand 
some  young  husband,  hung  out  of  the  circle 
of  radiance,  in  the  isolation  that,  wherever 
they  hang,  always  seems  to  surround  the 
portraits  of  the  dead. 

Old  as  the  parlors  appeared,  madame  ante 
dated  them  by  the  sixteen  years  she  had 
lived  before  her  marriage,  which  had  been 
the  occasion  of  their  furnishment.  She  had 
traveled  a  considerable  distance  over  the 
sands  of  time  since  the  epoch  commemorated 


198  BALCONY    STORIES 

by  the  portrait.  Indeed,  it  would  require 
almost  documentary  evidence  to  prove  that 
she,  who  now  was  arriving  at  eighty,  was  the 
same  Atalanta  that  had  started  out  so  buoy 
antly  at  sixteen. 

Instead  of  a  cap,  she  wore  black  lace  over 
her  head,  pinned  with  gold  brooches.  Her 
white  hair  curled  naturally  over  a  low  fore 
head.  Her  complexion  showed  care — and 
powder.  Her  eyes  were  still  bright,  not 
with  the  effete  intelligence  of  old  age,  but 
with  actual  potency.  She  wore  a  loose  black 
sack  flowered  in  purple,  and  over  that  a 
black  lace  mantle,  fastened  with  more  gold 
brooches. 

She  played  her  game  of  solitaire  rapidly, 
impatiently,  and  always  won;  for  she  never 
hesitated  to  cheat  to  get  out  of  a  tight  place, 
or  into  a  favorable  one,  cheating  with  the 
quickness  of  a  flash,  and  forgetting  it  the 
moment  afterward. 

Mr.  Horace  was  as  old  as  she,  but  he 
looked  much  younger,  although  his  dress  and 
appearance  betrayed  no  evidence  of  an  ef 
fort  in  that  direction.  Whenever  his  friend 
cheated,  he  would  invariably  call  her  attention 
to  it ;  and  as  usual  she  would  shrug  her 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  199 

shoulders,  and  say,  "Bah!  lose  a  game  for  a 
card!"  and  pursue  the  conversation. 

He  happened  to  mention  mushrooms — 
fresh  mushrooms.  She  threw  down  her  cards 
before  the  words  were  out  of  his  mouth,  and 
began  to  call,  "Jules!  Jules!"  Mr.  Horace 
pulled  the  bell-cord,  but  madame  was  too 
excitable  for  that  means  of  communication. 
She  ran  into  the  antechamber,  and  put  her 
head  over  the  banisters,  calling,  "Jules! 
Jules!"  louder  and  louder.  She  might  have 
heard  Jules's  slippered  feet  running  from  the 
street  into  the  corridor  and  up- stairs,  had  she 
not  been  so  deaf.  He  appeared  at  the  door. 

"But  where  have  you  been?  Here  I  have 
been  raising  the  house  a  half-hour,  calling 
you.  You  have  been  in  the  street.  I  am 
sure  you  have  been  in  the  street." 

"  Madame  is  very  much  mistaken,"  an 
swered  Jules,  with  resentful  dignity.  He  had 
taken  off  his  white  apron  of  waiter,  and  was 
disreputable  in  all  the  shabbiness  of  his  attire 
as  cook.  "When  madame  forbids  me  to  go 
into  the  street,  I  do  not  go  into  the  street.  I 
was  in  the  kitchen;  I  had  fallen  asleep. 
What  does  madame  desire?"  smiling  benevo 
lently. 


200  BALCONY    STORIES 

4  *  What  is  this  I  hear?  Fresh  mushrooms 
in  the  market!" 

"Eh,  madame?" 

"  Fresh  mushrooms  in  the  market,  and  you 
have  not  brought  me  any!" 

"Madame,  there  are  fresh  mushrooms 
everywhere  in  the  market,"  waving  his  hand 
to  show  their  universality. 

"Everybody  is  eating  them — " 

"Old  Pomponnette,"  Jules  continued,  "only 
this  morning  offered  me  a  plate,  piled  up 
high,  for  ten  cents." 

"Idiot!      Why  did  you  not  buy  them?" 

"If  madame  had  said  so;  but  madame  did 
not  say  so.  Madame  said,  'Soup,  Jules; 
carrots,  rice,"  counting  on  his  fingers. 

"And   the   gumbo?" 

"I  have  explained  that  that  was  an  acci 
dent.  Madame  said  'Soup,"  enumerating 
his  menu  again;  "madame  never  once  said 
mushrooms." 

"But  how  could  I  know  there  were  mush 
rooms  in  the  market?  Do  I  go  to  market?" 

"That  is  it !"  and  Jules  smiled  at  the  ques 
tion  thus  settled. 

"  If  you  had  told  me  there  were  mushrooms 
in  the  market — "  pursued  madame,  persisting 
in  treating  Jules  as  a  reasonable  being. 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  201 

"Why  did  not  madame  ask  me?  If 
madame  had  asked  me,  surely  I  would  have 
told  madame.  Yesterday  Caesar  brought 
them  to  the  door — a  whole  bucketful  for 
twenty-five  cents.  I  had  to  shut  the  door  in 
his  face  to  get  rid  of  him,"  triumphantly. 

"And  you  brought  me  yesterday  those 
detestable  peas!" 

"Ah,"  shrugging  his  shoulders,  "madame 
told  me  to  buy  what  I  saw.  I  saw  peas.  I 
bought  them." 

"Well,  understand  now,  once  for  all:  when 
ever  you  see  mushrooms,  no  matter  what  I 
ordered,  you  buy  them.  Do  you  hear?" 

"  No,  madame.  Surely  I  cannot  buy  mush 
rooms  unless  madame  orders  them.  Madame's 
disposition  is  too  quick." 

"But  I  do  order  them.  Stupid!  I  do  order 
them.  I  tell  you  to  buy  them  every  day." 

"And  if  there  are  none  in  the  market 
every  day?" 

"Go  away!  Get  out  of  my  sight!  I  do  not 
want  to  see  you.  Ah,  it  is  unendurable!  I 
must — I  must  get  rid  of  him!"  This  last  was 
not  a  threat,  as  Jules  knew  only  too  well.  It 
was  merely  a  habitual  exclamation. 

During  the  colloquy  Mr.  Horace,  leaning 
back  in  his  arm-chair,  raised  his  eyes,  and 


202  BALCONY    STORIES 

caught  the  reflected  portrait  of  madam e  in 
the  mirror  before  him  —  the  reflection  so 
much  softer  and  prettier,  so  much  more 
ethereal,  than  the  original  painting.  Indeed, 
seen  in  the  mirror,  that  way,  the  portrait  was 
as  refreshing  as  the  most  charming  memory. 
He  pointed  to  it  when  madame,  with  consid 
erable  loss  of  temper,  regained  her  seat. 

"  It  is  as  beautiful  as  the  past,"  he  ex 
plained  most  unnaturally,  for  he  and  his 
friend  had  a  horror  of  looking  at  the  long, 
long  past,  which  could  not  fail  to  remind 
them  of — what  no  one  cares  to  contemplate 
out  of  church.  Making  an  effort  toward 
some  determination  which  a  subtle  observer 
might  have  noticed  weighing  upon  him  all 
the  evening,  he  added :  "  And,  apropos  of 
the  past  —  " 

"  Hein?  "  interrogated  the  old  lady,  impa 
tiently,  still  under  the  influence  of  her  irasci 
bility  about  the  mushrooms. 

He  moved  his  chair  closer,  and  bent  for 
ward,  as  if  his  communication  were  to  be 
confidential. 

"Ah,  bah!  Speak  louder!"  she  cried. 
"  One  would  suppose  you  had  some  secret  to 
tell.  What  secrets  can  there  be  at  our  age?" 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  203 

She  took  up  her  cards  and  began  to  play. 
There  could  be  no  one  who  bothered  herself 
less  about  the  forms  of  politeness. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  answered  Mr.  Horace,  throw 
ing  himself  back  into  his  chair;  "  what  sec 
rets  can  there  be  at  our  age  ?  " 

The  remark  seemed  a  pregnant  one  to 
him  ;  he  gave  himself  up  to  it.  One  must 
evidently  be  the  age  of  one's  thoughts.  Mr. 
Horace's  thoughts  revealed  him  the  old  man 
he  was.  The  lines  in  his  face  deepened  into 
wrinkles ;  his  white  mustache  could  not  pre 
tend  to  conceal  his  mouth,  worsened  by  the 
loss  of  a  tooth  or  two ;  and  the  long,  thin 
hand  that  propped  his  head  was  crossed  with 
blue,  distended  veins.  "At  the  last  judg 
ment" —  it  was  a  favorite  quotation  with  him 
—  "  the  book  of  our  conscience  will  be  read 
aloud  before  the  whole  company." 

But  the  old  lady,  deep  in  her  game,  paid 
no  more  heed  to  his  quotation  than  to  him. 
He  made  a  gesture  toward  her  portrait. 

"When  that  was  painted,  Josephine — " 

Madame  threw  a  glance  after  the  gesture. 
The  time  was  so  long  ago,  the  mythology  of 
Greece  hardly  more  distant !  At  eighty 
the  golden  age  of  youth  must  indeed  appear 


204  BALCONY    STORIES 

an  evanescent  myth.  Madame's  ideas  seemed 
to  take  that  direction. 

"  Ah,  at  that  time  we  were  all  nymphs, 
and  you  all  demigods." 

"Demigods  and  nymphs,  yes;  but  there 
was  one  among  us  who  was  a  god  with 
you  all." 

The  allusion  —  a  frequent  one  with  Mr. 
Horace  —  was  to  madame's  husband,  who  in 
his  day,  it  is  said,  had  indeed  played  the  god 
in  the  little  Arcadia  of  society.  She  shrugged 
her  shoulders.  The  truth  is  so  little  of  a 
compliment.  The  old  gentleman  sighed  in 
an  abstracted  way,  and  madame,  although 
apparently  absorbed  in  her  game,  lent  her 
ear.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  a  woman  is 
never  too  old  to  hear  a  sigh  wafted  in  her 
direction. 

"Josephine,  do  you  remember  —  in  your 
memory  —  " 

She  pretended  not  to  hear.  Remember? 
Who  ever  heard  of  her  forgetting  ?  But  she 
was  not  the  woman  to  say,  at  a  moment's 
notice,  what  she  remembered  or  what  she 
forgot. 

"A  woman's  memory!  When  I  think  of 
a  woman's  memory — in  fact,  I  do  not  like  to 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  205 

think  of  a  woman's  memory.  One  can  in 
trude  in  imagination  into  many  places ;  but  a 
woman's  memory — " 

Mr.  Horace  seemed  to  lose  his  thread.  It 
had  been  said  of  him  in  his  youth  that  he 
wrote  poetry — and  it  was  said  against  him. 
It  was  evidently  such  lapses  as  these  that 
had  given  rise  to  the  accusation.  And  as 
there  was  no  one  less  impatient  under  sentf- 
ment  or  poetry  than  madame,  her  feet  began 
to  agitate  themselves  as  if  Jules  were  perora 
ting  some  of  his  culinary  inanities  before  her. 

"  And  a  man's  memory  !  "  totally  misunder 
standing  him.  "It  is  not  there  that  I  either 
would  penetrate,  my  friend.  A  man  —  " 

When  madame  began  to  talk  about  men 
she  was  prompted  by  imagination  just  as 
much  as  was  Mr.  Horace  when  he  talked 
about  women.  But  what  a  difference  in  their 
sentiments !  And  yet  he  had  received  so 
little,  and  she  so  much,  from  the  subjects  of 
their  inspiration.  But  that  seems  to  be  the 
way  in  life  —  or  in  imagination. 

"  That  you  should"  —  he  paused  with  the 
curious  shyness  of  the  old  before  the  word 
"  love  "  —  "  that  you  two  should  —  marry  — 
seemed  natural,  inevitable,  at  the  time." 


206  BALCONY    STORIES 

Tradition  records  exactly  the  same  com 
ment  by  society  at  the  time  on  the  marriage 
in  question.  Society  is  ever  fatalistic  in  its 
comments. 

"But  the  natural  —  the  inevitable  —  do  we 
not  sometimes,  I  wonder,  perform  them  as 
Jules  does  his  accidents  ?  " 

"Ah,  do  not  talk  about  that  idiot!  An 
idiot  born  and  bred  !  I  won't  have  him  about 
me  !  He  is  a  monstrosity  !  I  tell  his  grand 
mother  that  every  day  when  she  comes  to 
comb  me.  What  a  farce  —  what  a  ridiculous 
farce  comfortable  existence  has  become  with 
us  !  Fresh  mushrooms  in  market,  and  bring 
me  carrots  !  " 

The  old  gentleman,  partly  from  long 
knowledge  of  her  habit,  or  from  an  equally 
persistent  bend  of  his  own,  quietly  held  on* 
to  his  idea. 

"  One  cannot  tell.  It  seems  so  at  the 
time.  We  like  to  think  it  so ;  it  makes  it 
easier.  And  yet,  looking  back  on  our  future 
as  we  once  looked  forward  to  it — " 

"  Eh  !  but  who  wants  to  look  back  on  it, 
my  friend  ?  Who  in  the  world  wants  to  look 
back  on  it  ?  "  One  could  not  doubt  madame's 
energy  of  opinion  on  that  question  to  hear 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  207 

her  voice.  "  We  have  done  our  future,  we 
have  performed  it,  if  you  will.  Our  future ! 
It  is  like  the  dinners  we  have  eaten ;  of 
course  we  cannot  remember  the  good  with 
out  becoming  exasperated  over  the  bad : 
but — "  shrugging  her  shoulders —  "  since 
we  cannot  beat  the  cooks,  we  must  submit 
to  fate,"  forcing  a  queen  that  she  needed  at 
the  critical  point  of  her  game. 

"  At  sixteen  and  twenty-one  it  is  hard  to 
realize  that  one  is  arranging  one's  life  to  last 
until  sixty,  seventy,  forever,"  correcting  him 
self  as  he  thought  of  his  friend,  the  dead  hus 
band.  If  madame  had  ever  possessed  the  art 
of  self-control,  it  was  many  a  long  day  since 
she  had  exercised  it ;  now  she  frankly  began 
to  show  ennui. 

''When  I  look  back  to  that  time," — Mr. 
Horace  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  half 
closed  his  eyes,  perhaps  to  avoid  the  expres 
sion  of  her  face, — "  I  see  nothing  but  lights 
and  flowers,  I  hear  nothing  but  music  and 
laughter;  and  all — lights  and  flowers  and 
music  and  laughter — seem  to  meet  in  this 

o 

room,  where  we  met  so  often  to  arrange  our 
—  inevitabilities."  The  word  appeared  to  at 
tract  him.  ''Josephine," — with  a  sudden 


208  BALCONY    STORIES 

change  of  voice  and  manner, — "Josephine, 
how  beautiful  you  were  ! " 

The  old  lady  nodded  her  head  without 
looking  from  her  cards. 

"They  used  to  say,"  with  sad  conviction  of 
the  truth  of  his  testimony — "the  men  used  to 
say  that  your  beauty  was  irresistible.  None 
ever  withstood  you.  None  ever  could." 

That,  after  all,  was  Mr.  Horace's  great 
charm  with  madame ;  he  was  so  faithful  to 
the  illusions  of  his  youth.  As  he  looked  now 
at  her,  one  could  almost  feel  the  irresistibility 
of  which  he  spoke. 

"It  was  only  their  excuse,  perhaps;  we 
could  not  tell  at  the  time ;  we  cannot  tell 
even  now  when  we  think  about  it.  They 
said  then,  talking  as  men  talk  over  such 
things,  that  you  were  the  only  one  who  could 
remain  yourself  under  the  circumstances ; 
you  were  the  only  one  who  could  know,  who 
could  will,  under  the  circumstances.  It  was 
their  theory ;  men  can  have  only  theories 
about  such  things."  His  voice  dropped,  and 
he  seemed  to  drop  too,  into  some  abysm  of 
thought. 

Madame  looked  into  the  mirror,  where  she 
could  see  the  face  of  the  one  who  alone  could 


A    DELICATE    AFFAIR  209 

retain  her  presence  of  mind  under  the  cir 
cumstances  suggested  by  Mr.  Horace.  She 
could  also  have  seen,  had  she  wished  it, 
among  the  reflected  bric-a-brac  of  the  man 
tel,  the  corner  of  the  frame  that  held  the 
picture  of  her  husband,  but  peradventure, 
classing  it  with  the  past  which  held  so  many 
unavenged  bad  dinners,  she  never  thought  to 
link  it  even  by  a  look  with  her  emotions  of 
the  present.  Indeed,  it  had  been  said  of  her 
that  in  past,  present,  and  future  there  had 
ever  been  but  the  one  picture  to  interest  her 
eyes — the  one  she  was  looking  at  now. 
This,  however,  was  the  remark  of  the  uni 
nitiated,  for  the  true  passion  of  a  beautiful 
woman  is  never  so  much  for  her  beauty  as 
for  its  booty ;  as  the  passion  of  a  gamester  is 
for  his  game,  not  for  his  luck. 

"  How   beautiful  she  was  !  " 

It  was  apparently  down  in  the  depths  of 
his  abysm  that  he  found  the  connection  be 
tween  this  phrase  and  his  last,  and  it  was 
evidently  to  himself  he  said  it.  Madame, 
however,  heard  and  understood  too ;  in  fact, 
traced  back  to  a  certain  period,  her  thoughts 
and  Mr.  Horace's  must  have  been  fed  by 
pretty  much  the  same  subjects.  But  she  had 


210  BALCONY    STORIES 

so  carefully  barricaded  certain  issues  in  her 
memory  as  almost  to  obstruct  their  flow  into 
her  life ;  if  she  were  a  cook,  one  would  say 
that  it  was  her  bad  dinners  which  she  was 
trying  to  keep  out  of  remembrance. 

"You  there,  he  there,  she  there,  I  there." 
He  pointed  to  the  places  on  the  carpet,  under 
the  chandelier  ;  he  could  have  touched  them 
with  a  walking-stick,  and  the  recollection 
seemed  just  as  close. 

"  She  was,  in  truth,  what  we  men  called 
her  then  ;  it  was  her  eyes  that  first  suggested 
it — Myosotis,  the  little  blue  flower,  the  for 
get-me-not.  It  suited  her  better  than  her 
own  name.  We  always  called  her  that 
among  ourselves.  How  beautiful  she  was  !  " 

o 

He  leaned  his  head  on  his  hand  and  looked 
where  he  had  seen  her  last — so  long,  such 
an  eternity,  ago. 

It  must  be  explained  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  do  not  live  in  the  little  world  where 
an  allusion  is  all  that  is  necessary  to  put  one 
in  full  possession  of  any  drama,  domestic  or 
social,  that  Mr.  Horace  was  speaking  of  the 
wedding-night  of  madame,  when  the  bridal 
party  stood  as  he  described  under  the  chan 
delier  ;  the  bride  and  groom,  with  each  one's 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  211 

best  friend.  It  may  be  said  that  it  was  the 
last  night  or  time  that  madame  had  a  best 
friend  of  her  own  sex.  Social  gossip,  with 
characteristic  kindness,  had  furnished  reasons 
to  suit  all  tastes,  why  madame  had  ceased 
that  night  to  have  a  best  friend  of  her  own 
sex.  If  gossip  had  not  done  so,  society  would 
still  be  left  to  its  imagination  for  information, 
for  madame  never  tolerated  the  smallest  ap 
peal  to  her  for  enlightenment.  What  the 
general  taste  seemed  most  to  relish  as  a  ver 
sion  was  that  madame  in  her  marriage  had 
triumphed,  not  conquered;  and  that  the  night 
of  her  wedding  she  had  realized  the  fact,  and, 
to  be  frank,  had  realized  it  ever  since.  In  short, 
madame  had  played  then  to  gain  at  love,  as 
she  played  now  to  gain  at  solitaire ;  and 
hearts  were  no  more  than  cards  to  her — and, 
"  Bah  !  Lose  a  game  for  a  card!"  must  have 
been  always  her  motto.  It  is  hard  to  explain 
it  delicately  enough,  for  these  are  the  most 
delicate  affairs  in  life ;  but  the  image  of  Myo- 
sotis  had  passed  through  monsieur's  heart, 
and  Myosotis  does  mean  "  forget  me  not." 
And  madame  well  knew  that  to  love  monsieur 
once  was  to  love  him  always,  in  spite  of  jeal 
ousy,  doubt,  distrust,  nay,  unhappiness  (for  to 


212  BALCONY    STORIES 

love  him  meant  all  this  and  more).  He  was 
that  kind  of  man,  they  said,  whom  women 
could  love  even  against  conscience.  Ma 
dame  never  forgave  that  moment.  Her 
friend,  at  least,  she  could  put  aside  out  of  her 
intercourse ;  unfortunately,  we  cannot  put 
people  out  of  our  lives.  God  alone  can  do 
that,  and  so  far  he  had  interfered  in  the  mat 
ter  only  by  removing  monsieur.  It  was 
known  to  notoriety  that  since  her  wedding 
madame  had  abandoned,  destroyed,  all  know 
ledge  of  her  friend.  And  the  friend  ?  She 
had  disappeared  as  much  as  is  possible  for 
one  in  her  position  and  with  her  duties. 

"What  there  is  in  blue  eyes,  light  hair,  and 
a  fragile  form  to  impress  one,  I  cannot  tell ; 
but  for  us  men  it  seems  to  me  it  is  blue-eyed, 
light-haired,  and  fragile- formed  women  that 
are  the  hardest  to  forget." 

"  The  less  easy  to  forget,"  corrected 
madame ;  but  he  paid  no  attention  to  the 
remark. 

"They  are  the  women  that  attach  them 
selves  in  one's  memory.  If  necessary  to 
keep  from  being  forgotten,  they  come  back 
into  one's  dreams.  And  as  life  rolls  on,  one 
wonders  about  them, —  'Is  she  happy?  Is 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  213 

she  miserable  ?  Goes  life  well  or  ill  with 
her?"' 

Madame  played  her  cards  slowly,  one 
would  say,  for  her,  prosaically. 

"  And  there  is  always  a  pang  when,  as  one 
is  so  wondering,  the  response  comes, — that 
is,  the  certainty  in  one's  heart  responds, — 
'  She  is  miserable,  and  life  goes  ill  with 
her.'  Then,  if  ever,  men  envy  the  power 
of  God." 

Madame  threw  over  the  game  she  was  in, 
and  began  a  new  one. 

"Such  women  should  not  be  unhappy; 
they  are  too  fragile,  too  sensitive,  too  trust 
ing.  I  could  never  understand  the  infliction 
of  misery  upon  them.  I  could  send  death  to 
them,  but  not — not  misfortune." 

Madame,  forgetting  again  to  cheat  in  time, 
and  losing  her  game,  began  impatiently  to 
shuffle  her  cards  for  a  new  deal. 

"  And  yet,  do  you  know,  Josephine,  those 
women  are  the  unhappy  ones  of  life.  They 
seem  predestined  to  it,  as  others" — looking 
at  madame's  full-charmed  portrait — "are 
predestined  to  triumph  and  victory.  They" 
— unconscious,  in  his  abstraction,  of  the  per 
sonal  nature  of  his  simile — "never  know 


214  BALCONY    STORIES 

how  to  handle  their  cards,  and  they  always 
play  a  losing  game." 

"  Ha  !  "  came  from  madame,  startled  into 
an  irate  ejaculation. 

"It  is  their  love  always  that  is  sacrificed, 
their  hearts  always  that  are  bruised.  One 
might  say  that  God  himself  favors  the  black- 
haired  ones  !  " 

As  his  voice  sank  lower  and  lower,  the 
room  seemed  to  become  stiller  and  stiller. 
A  passing  vehicle  in  the  street,  however,  now 
and  then  drew  a  shiver  of  sound  from  the 
pendent  prisms  of  the  chandelier. 

"  She  was  so  slight,  so  fragile,  and  always 
in  white,  with  blue  in  her  hair  to  match  her 
eyes — and — God  knows  what  in  her  heart, 
all  the  time.  And  yet  they  stand  it,  they 
bear  it,  they  do  not  die,  they  live  along  with 
the  strongest,  the  happiest,  the  most  fortu 
nate  of  us,"  bitterly;  "and" — raising  his  eyes 
to  his  old  friend,  who  thereupon  immediately 
began  to  fumble  her  cards — "whenever  in 
the  street  I  see  a  poor,  bent,  broken  woman's 
figure,  I  know,  without  verifying  it  any  more 
by  a  glance,  that  it  is  the  wreck  of  a  fair 
woman's  figure ;  whenever  I  hear  of  a  bent, 
broken  existence,  I  know,  without  asking 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  215 

any  more,  that  it  is  the  wreck  of  a  fair 
woman's  life." 

Poor  Mr.  Horace  spoke  with  the  unrea 
son  of  a  superstitious  bigot. 

"  I  have  often  thought,  since,  in  large 
assemblies,  particularly  in  weddings,  Joseph 
ine,  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  women's 
hearts  there,  and  I  have  felt  sorry  for  them ; 
and  when  I  think  of  God's  knowing  what 
is  in  their  hearts,  I  have  felt  sorry  for  the 
men.  And  I  often  think  now,  Josephine, — 
I  think  oftener  and  oftener  of  it, — that  if  the 
resurrection  trumpet  of  our  childhood  should 
sound  some  day,  no  matter  when,  out  there, 
over  the  old  St.  Louis  cemetery,  and  we 
should  all  have  to  rise  from  our  long  rest 
of  oblivion,  what  would  be  the  first  thing 
we  should  do  ?  And  though  there  were  a 
God  and  a  heaven  awaiting  us, — by  that 
same  God,  Josephine,  I  believe  that  our 
first  thought  in  awakening  would  be  the 
last  in  dying, — confession, — and  that  our 
first  rush  would  be  to  the  feet  of  one  an 
other  for  forgiveness.  For  there  are  some 
offenses  that  must  outlast  the  longest  ob 
livion,  and  a  forgiveness  that  will  be  more 
necessary  than  God's  own.  Then  our  hearts 


216  BALCONY    STORIES 

will  be  bared  to  one  another ;  for  if,  as 
you  say,  there  are  no  secrets  at  our  age, 
there  can  still  be  less  cause  for  them  after 
death." 

His  voice  ended  in  the  faintest  whisper. 
The  table  crashed  over,  and  the  cards  flew 
wide-spread  on  the  floor.  Before  we  could 
recover,  madame  was  in  the  antechamber, 
screaming  for  Jules. 

One  would  have  said  that,  from  her  face, 
the  old  lady  had  witnessed  the  resurrection 
described  by  Mr.  Horace,  the  rush  of  the 
spirits  with  their  burdens  of  remorse,  the  one 
to  the  feet  of  the  other ;  and  she  must  have 
seen  herself  and  her  husband,  with  a  una 
nimity  of  purpose  never  apparent  in  their 
short  married  life,  rising  from  their  common 
tomb  and  hastening  to  that  other  tomb  at  the 
end  of  the  alley,  and  falling  at  the  feet  of  the 
one  to  whom  in  life  he  had  been  recreant  in 
love,  she  in  friendship. 

Of  course  Jules  answered  through  the 
wrong  door,  rushing  in  with  his  gas-stick,  and 
turning  off  the  gas.  In  a  moment  we  were 
involved  in  darkness  and  dispute. 

"  But  what  does  he  mean  ?  What  does  the 
idiot  mean?  He — "  It  was  impossible  for 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  217 

her  to  find  a  word  to  do  justice  to  him  and  to 
her  exasperation  at  the  same  time. 

"Pardon,  madame;  it  is  not  I.  It  is  the 
cathedral  bell;  it  is  ringing  nine  o'clock." 

"  But—" 

"  Madame  can  hear  it  herself.  Listen  !  " 
We  could  not  see  it,  but  we  were  conscious  of 
the  benign,  toothless  smile  spreading  over 
his  face  as  the  bell-tones  fell  in  the  room. 

"  But  it  is  not  the  gas.      I  — " 

"  Pardon,  madame;  but  it  is  the  gas.  Ma 
dame  said,  '  Jules,  put  out  the  gas  every  night 
when  the  bell  rin^s.'  Madame  told  me  that 

o 

only  last  night.  The  bell  rings :  I  put  out 
the  gas." 

"Will  you  be  silent?     Will  you  listen?" 
"If  madame  wishes  ;  just  as  madame  says." 
But  the  old  lady  had  turned  to  Mr.  Horace. 
"  Horace,  you  have  seen — you  know — "  and 
it  was  a  question   now  of  overcoming  emo 
tion.     "I  —  I  —  I — a    carriage,   my    friend,    a 
carriage." 

"Madame  — "  Jules  interrupted  his  smile 
to  interrupt  her. 

She  was  walking  around  the  room,  picking 
up  a  shawl  here,  a  lace  there ;  for  she  was 
always  prepared  against  draughts. 


218  BALCONY    STORIES 

"Madame  — "  continued  Jules,  pursuing 
her. 

"  A  carriage." 

"  If  madame  would  only  listen,  I  was  going 
to  say  —  but  madame  is  too  quick  in  her  dis 
position —  the  carriage  has  been  waiting 
since  a  long  hour  ago.  Mr.  Horace  said  to 
have  it  there  in  a  half  hour." 

It  was  then  she  saw  for  the  first  time  that 
it  had  all  been  prepared  by  Mr.  Horace. 
The  rest  was  easy  enough:  getting  into  the 
carriage,  and  finding  the  place  of  which  Mr. 
Horace  had  heard,  as  he  said,  only  that 
afternoon.  In  it,  on  her  bed  of  illness,  pov 
erty,  and  suffering,  lay  the  patient,  wasted 
form  of  the  beautiful  fair  one  whom  men  had 
called  in  her  youth  Myosotis. 

But  she  did  not  call  her  Myosotis. 

" Mon  Amour!"  The  old  pet  name,  al 
though  it  had  to  be  fetched  across  more  than 
half  a  century  of  disuse,  flashed  like  lightning 
from  madame's  heart  into  the  dim  chamber. 

"Ma  Divine  /"  came  in  counter-flash  from 
the  curtained  bed. 

In  the  old  days  women,  or  at  least  young 
girls,  could  hazard  such  pet  names  one  upon 
the  other.  These — think  of  it! — dated  from 


A   DELICATE   AFFAIR  219 

the  first  communion  class,  the  dating  period 
of  so  much  of  friendship. 

"  My  poor  Amour  !" 

"  My  poor,  poor  Divine  !" 

The  voices  were  together,  close  beside  the 
pillow. 

"I  —  I  —  "  began  Divine. 

"It  could  not  have  happened  if  God  had 
not  wished  it,"  interrupted  poor  Amour,  with 
the  resignation  that  comes,  alas!  only  with 
the  last  drop  of  the  bitter  cup. 

And  that  was  about  all.  If  Mr.  Horace 
had  not  slipped  away,  he  might  have  noticed 
the  curious  absence  of  monsieur's  name,  and 
of  his  own  name,  in  the  murmuring  that  fol 
lowed.  It  would  have  given  him  some  more 
ideas  on  the  subject  of  woman. 

At  any  rate,  the  good  God  must  thank  him 
for  having  one  affair  the  less  to  arrange  when 
the  trumpet  sounds  out  there  over  the  old  St. 
Louis  cemetery.  And  he  was  none  too  pre 
mature;  for  the  old  St.  Louis  cemetery,  as 
was  shortly  enough  proved,  was  a  near  reach 
for  all  three  of  the  old  friends. 


PUPASSE 


PUPASSE 

T^VERY  day,  every  day,  it  was  the  same 
LJ  overture  in  Madame  Joubert's  room  in 
the  Institut  St.  Denis;  the  strident: 

"Mesdemoiselles;  a  vos  places!  Notre  Pere 
qui  est  dans  le  ciel  —  Oui  a  fait  ce  bruit?" 

"It's  Pupasse,  madame!  It's  Pupasse!" 
The  answer  invariably  was  unanimous. 

"But,  Madame  Joubert, —  I  assure  you, 
Madame  Joubert, —  I  could  not  help  it ! 
They  know  I  could  not  help  it!" 

By  this  time  the  fresh  new  fool's  cap  made 
from  yesterday's  "Bee"  would  have  been 
pinned  on  her  head. 

"  Quelle   injustice!      Quelle  injustice!" 

This  last  apostrophe  in  a  high,  whining 
nasal  voice,  always  procured  Pupasse's  ele 
vation  on  the  tall  three-legged  stool  in  the 
corner. 

It  was  a  theory  of  the  little  girls  in  the  pri 
mary  class  that  Madame  Joubert  would  be 


223 


224  BALCONY    STORIES 

much  more  lenient  to  their  own  little  inevi 
tabilities  of  bad  conduct  and  lessons  if  Pu- 
passe  did  not  invariably  comb  her  the  wrong 
way  every  morning  after  prayers,  by  dropping 
something,  or  sniffling,  or  sneezing.  There 
fore,  while  they  distractedly  got  together 
books,  slates,  and  copy-books,  their  infantile 
eyes  found  time  to  dart  deadly  reproaches 
toward  the  corner  of  penitence,  and  their  lit 
tle  lips,  still  shaped  from  their  first  nourish 
ment,  pouted  anything  but  sympathy  for  the 
occupant  of  it. 

Indeed,  it  would  have  been  a  most  startling 
unreality  to  have  ever  entered  Madame  Jou- 
bert's  room  and  not  seen  Pupasse  in  that  cor 
ner,  on  that  stool,  her  tall  figure  shooting  up 
like  a  post,  until  her  tall,  pointed  bonnet  d'  dm 
came  within  an  inch  or  two  of  the  ceiling.  It 

o 

was  her  hoop-skirt  that  best  testified  to  her 
height.  It  was  the  period  of  those  funnel- 
shaped  hoop-skirts  that  spread  out  with  such 
nice  mathematical  proportions,  from  the  waist 
down,  that  it  seemed  they  must  have  ema 
nated  from  the  brains  of  astronomers,  like  the 
orbits,  and  diameters,  and  other  things  belong 
ing  to  the  heavenly  bodies.  Pupasse  could 
not  have  come  within  three  feet  of  the  wall 


PUPASSE  225 

with  her  hoop-skirt  distended.  To  have 
forced  matters  was  not  to  be  thought  of  an 
instant.  So  even  in  her  greatest  grief  and 
indignation,  she  had  to  pause  before  the 
three-legged  black  stool,  and  gather  up  steel 
after  steel  of  her  circumference  in  her  hands 
behind,  until  her  calico  skirt  careened  and 
flattened;  and  so  she  could  manage  to  accom 
modate  herself  to  the  limited  space  of  her 
punishment,  the  circles  drooping  far  over  her 
feet  as  she  stood  there,  looking  like  the  cos 
tumed  stick  of  a  baby's  rattle. 

Her  thinness  continued  into  her  face, 
which,  unfortunately,  had  nothing  in  the  way 
of  toilet  to  assist  it.  Two  little  black  eyes 
fixed  in  the  sides  of  a  mere  fence  of  a  nose, 
and  a  mouth  with  the  shape  and  expression 
of  all  mouths  made  to  go  over  sharp-pointed 
teeth  planted  very  far  apart ;  the  smallest 
amount  possible  of  fine,  dry,  black  hair — a 
perfect  rat-tail  when  it  was  plaited  in  one,  as 
almost  all  wore  their  hair.  But  sometimes 
Pupasse  took  it  into  her  head  to  plait  it  in  two 
braids,  as  none  but  the  thick-haired  ventured 
to  wear  it.  As  the  little  girls  said,  it  was  a 
petition  to  Heaven  for  "  eau  Quinquina." 

When    Marcelite,    the    hair-dresser,    came    at 

15 


226  BALCONY    STORIES 

her  regular  periods  to  visit  the  hair  of  the 
boarders,  she  would  make  an  effort  with 
Pupasse,  plaiting  her  hundred  hairs  in  a  ten- 
strand  braid.  The  effect  was  a  half  yard  of 
black  worsted  galloon  ;  nothing  more,  or  bet 
ter.  Had  Pupasse  possessed  as  many  heads 
as  the  hydra,  she  could  have  "coiffe'd" 
them  all  with  fools'  caps  during  one  morn 
ing's  recitations.  She  entirely  monopolized 
the  "  Daily  Bee."  Madame  Joubert  was 
forced  to  borrow  from  "  madame "  the  stale 
weekly  "  Courrier  des  Etats-Unis"  for  the 
rest  of  the  room.  From  grammar,  through 
sacred  history,  arithmetic,  geography,  my 
thology,  down  to  dictation,  Pupasse  could  pile 
up  an  accumulation  of  penitences  that  would 
have  tasked  the  limits  of  the  current  day  had 
not  recreation  been  wisely  set  as  a  term 
which  disbarred,  by  proscription,  previous 
offenses.  But  even  after  recreation,  with  that 
day's  lessons  safely  out,  punished  and  expi 
ated,  Pupasse's  doom  seemed  scarcely  light 
ened;  there  was  still  a  whole  criminal  code  of 
conduct  to  infract.  The  only  difference  was 
that  instead  of  books,  slates,  or  copy-books, 
leathern  medals,  bearing  various  legends  and 
mottos,  were  hune1  around  her  neck — a  tra- 


PUPASSE  227 

vestied  decoration  worse  than  the  books  for 
humiliation. 

The  "  abecedaires,"  their  torment  for  the 
clay  over,  thankful  for  any  distraction  from 
the  next  day's  lessons,  and  eager  for  any 
relief  from  the  intolerable  ennui  of  goodness, 
were  thankful  enough  now  for  Pupasse. 
They  naturally  watched  her  in  preference  to 
Madame  Joubert,  holding  their  books  and 
slates  quite  cunningly  to  hide  their  faces. 
Pupasse  had  not  only  the  genius,  but  that 
which  sometimes  fails  genius,  the  means  for 

o 

grimacing :  little  eyes,  long  nose,  foolish 
mouth,  and  pointed  tongue.  And  she  was 
so  amusing,  when  Madame  Joubert's  head 
was  turned,  that  the  little  girls,  being  young 
and  innocent,  would  forget  themselves  and 
all  burst  out  laughing.  It  sounded  like  a 
flight  of  singing  birds  through  the  hot,  close, 
stupid  little  room;  but  not  so  to  Madame 
Joubert. 

"  Young  ladies !  But  what  does  this 
mean  ?" 

And,  terror-stricken,  the  innocents  would 
call  out  with  one  voice,  "It's  Pupasse,  ma- 
dame!  It's  Pupasse  who  made  us  laugh!" 
There  was  nothing  but  fools'  caps  to  be 


228  BALCONY    STORIES 

gained  by  prevaricating,  and  there  was  fre 
quently  nothing  less  gained  by  confession. 
And  oh,  the  wails  and  the  sobs  as  the  inno 
cents  would  be  stood  up,  one  by  one,  in  their 
places !  Even  the  pigtails  at  the  backs  of 
their  little  heads  were  convulsed  with  grief. 
Oh,  how  they  hated  Pupasse  then !  When 
their  bonnes  came  for  them  at  three  o'clock, — 
washing  their  tear-stained  faces  at  the  cistern 
before  daring  to  take  them  through  the 
streets, — how  passionately  they  would  cry 
out,  the  tears  breaking  afresh  into  the  wet 
handkerchiefs : 

"It  's  that  Pupasse!  It  's  that  vilaine 
Pupasse !" 

To  Pupasse  herself  would  be  meted  out 
that  upeine  forte  et  dure,"  that  acme  of  hu 
miliation  and  disgrace,  so  intensely  horrible 
that  many  a  little  girl  in  that  room  solemnly 
averred  and  believed  she  would  kill  herself 
before  submitting  to  it.  Pupasse's  volumi 
nous  calico  skirt  would  be  gathered  up  by  the 
hem  and  tied  up  over  her  head  !  Oh,  the 
horrible  monstrosity  on  the  stool  in  the  corner 
then  !  There  were  no  eyes  in  that  room  that 
had  any  desire  to  look  upon  it.  And  the  cries 
and  the  "  Quelle  injustice!"  that  fell  on  the 


PUPASSE  229 

ears  then  from  the  hidden  feelings  had  all  the 
weirdness  of  the  unseen,  but  heard.  And  all 
the  other  girls  in  the  room,  in  fear  and  trem 
bling,  would  begin  to  move  their  lips  in  a 
perfect  whirlwind  of  study,  or  write  violently 
on  their  slates,  or  begin  at  that  very  instant  to 
rule  off  their  copy-books  for  the  next  day's 
verb. 

Pupasse — her  name  was  Marie  Pupasse, 
but  no  one  thought  of  calling  her  anything 
but  Pupasse,  with  emphasis  on  the  first  sylla 
ble  and  sibilance  on  the  last — had  no  parents, 
only  a  grandmother,  to  describe  whom,  all 
that  is  necessary  to  say  is  that  she  was  as 
short  as  Pupasse  was  tall,  and  that  her  face 
resembled  nothing  so  much  as  a  little  yellow 
apple  shriveling  from  decay.  The  old  lady 
came  but  once  a  week,  to  fetch  Pupasse  fresh 
clothes,  and  a  great  brown  paper  bag  of  nice 
things  to  eat.  There  was  no  boarder  in  the 
school  who  received  handsomer  bags  of  cake 
and  fruit  than  Pupasse.  And  although,  not 
two  hours  before,  a  girl  might  have  been  fore 
most  in  the  shrill  cry,  "  It  is  Pupasse  who 
made  the  noise  !  It  is  Pupasse  who  made  me 
laugh!"  there  was  nothing  in  that  paper  bag 
reserved  even  from  such  a  one.  When  the 


230  BALCONY    STORIES 

girl  herself  with  native  delicacy  would,  under 
the  circumstances,  judge  it  discreet  to  refuse, 
Pupasse  would  plead,  "  Oh,  but  take  it  to 
give  me  pleasure  ! "  And  if  still  the  refusal 
continued,  Pupasse  would  take  her  bag  and 
go  into  the  summer-house  in  the  corner  of 
the  garden,  and  cry  until  the  unforgiving  one 
would  relent.  But  the  first  offering  of  the 
bag  was  invariably  to  the  stern  dispenser  of 
fools'  caps  and  the  unnamed  humiliation  of 
the  reversed  skirt :  Madame  Joubert. 

Pupasse  was  in  the  fifth  class.  The  sixth 
—  the  abecedaires — was  the  lowest  in  the 
school.  Green  was  the  color  of  the  fifth ; 
white — innocence — of  the  abecedaires.  Ex 
hibition  after  exhibition,  the  same  green  sash 
and  green  ribbons  appeared  on  Pupasse's 
white  muslin,  the  white  muslin  getting  longer 
and  longer  every  year,  trying  to  keep  up  with 
her  phenomenal  growth  ;  and  always,  from  all 
over  the  room,  buzzed  the  audience's  sup 
pressed  merriment  at  Pupasse's  appearance 
in  the  ranks  of  the  little  ones  of  nine  and  ten. 
It  was  that  very  merriment  that  brought 
about  the  greatest  change  in  the  Institut  St. 
Denis.  The  sitting  order  of  the  classes  was 
reversed.  The  first  class — the  graduates  — 


PUPASSE  231 

went  up  to  the  top  step  of  the  estrade ;  and 
the  little  ones  put  on  the  lowest,  behind  the 
pianos.  The  graduates  grumbled  that  it  was 
not  comme  il  faut  to  have  young  ladies  of 
their  position  stepping  like  camels  up  and 
down  those  great  steps ;  and  the  little  girls 
said  it  was  a  shame  to  hide  them  behind  the 
pianos  after  their  mamas  had  taken  so  much 
pains  to  make  them  look  pretty.  But  ma- 
dame  said — going  also  to  natural  history  for 
her  comparison  —  that  one  must  be  a  rhinoce 
ros  to  continue  the  former  routine. 

Religion  cannot  be  kept  waiting  forever  on 
the  intelligence.  It  was  always  in  the  fourth 
class  that  the  first  communion  was  made ; 
that  is,  when  the  girls  stayed  one  year  in 
each  class.  But  Pupasse  had  spent  three 
years  in  the  sixth  class,  and  had  already  been 
four  in  the  fifth,  and  Madame  Joubert  felt 
that  longer  delay  would  be  disrespectful  to 
the  good  Lord.  It  was  true  that  Pupasse 
could  not  yet  distinguish  the  ten  command 
ments  from  the  seven  capital  sins,  and  still 
would  answer  that  Jeanne  d'Arc  was  the 
foundress  of  the  "  Little  Sisters  of  the  Poor." 
But,  as  Madame  Joubert  always  said  in  the 
little  address  she  made  to  the  catechism  class 


232  BALCONY    STORIES 

every  year  before  handing  it  over  to  Father 
Dolomier,  Gocl  judged  from  the  heart,  and 
not  from  the  mind. 

Father  Dolomier  —  from  his  face  he  would 
have  been  an  able  contestant  of  bonnets  d'dne 
with  Pupasse,  if  subjected  to  Madame  Jou- 
bert's  discipline  —  evidently  had  the  same 
method  of  judging  as  God,  although  the 
catechism  class  said  they  could  dance  a 
waltz  on  the  end  of  his  long  nose  without 
his  perceiving  it. 

There  is  always  a  little  air  of  mystery 
about  the  first  communion  :  not  that  there  is 
any  in  reality,  but  the  little  ones  assume  it  to 
render  themselves  important.  The  going  to 
early  mass,  the  holding  their  dog-eared  cate 
chisms  as  if  they  were  relics,  the  instruction 
from  the  priest,  even  if  he  were  only  old 
Father  Dolomier  —  it  all  put  such  a  little  air 
of  devotion  into  their  faces  that  it  imposed 
(as  it  did  every  year)  upon  their  companions, 
which  was  a  vastly  gratifying  effect.  No 
matter  how  young  and  innocent  she  may  be, 
a  woman's  devotion  always  seems  to  have 
two  aims  —  God  and  her  own  sex. 

The  week  of  retreat  came.  Oh,  the  week 
of  retreat !  That  was  the  bonne  bouche  of  it 


PUPASSE  233 

all,  for  themselves  and  for  the  others.  It  was 
the  same  every  year.  By  the  time  the  week 
of  retreat  arrived,  interest  and  mystery  had 
been  frothed  to  the  point  of  indiscretion  ;  so 
that  the  little  girls  would  stand  on  tiptoe  to 
peep  through  the  shutters  at  the  postulants 
inside,  and  even  the  larger  girls,  to  whom 
first  communion  was  a  thing  of  an  infantile 
past,  would  condescend  to  listen  to  their  re 
ports  with  ill-feignecl  indifference. 

As  the  day  of  the  first  communion  neared, 
the  day  of  the  general  confession  naturally 
neared  too,  leading  it.  And  then  the  little 
girls,  peeping  through  the  shutters,  and  hold 
ing  their  breath  to  see  better,  saw  what  they 
beheld  every  year ;  but  it  was  always  new 
and  awesome  —  mysterious  scribbling  in  cor 
ners  with  lead-pencils  on  scraps  of  paper ; 
consultations  ;  rewritings  ;  copyings  ;  the  list 
of  their  sins,  of  all  the  sins  of  their  lives. 

"Ma  chere!" —  pigtails  and  sunbonnets 
hiving  outside  would  shudder.  "  Oh,  Mon 
Dieu  !  To  have  to  confess  all — but  all  your 
sins  !  As  for  me,  it  would  kill  me,  sure  !  " 

And  the  frightful  recoils  of  their  con 
sciences  would  make  all  instantly  blanch  and 
cross  themselves. 


234  BALCONY    STORIES 

"And  look  at  Pupasse's  sins!  Oh,  but 
they  are  long !  Ma  chere,  but  look !  But 
look,  I  ask  you,  at  them !  " 

The  longest  record  was  of  course  the  most 
complimentary  and  honorable  to  the  posses 
sor,  as  each  girl  naturally  worked  not  only 
for  absolution  but  for  fame. 

Between  catechisms  and  instructions  Ma 
dame  Joubert  would  have  "  La  Vie  des 
Saints"  read  aloud,  to  stimulate  their  piety  and 
to  engage  their  thoughts ;  for  the  thoughts 
of  first  communicants  are  worse  than  flies  for 
buzzing  around  the  forbidden.  The  lecture 
must  have  been  a  great  quickener  of  con 
science  ;  for  they  would  dare  punishment  and 
cheat  Madame  Joubert,  under  her  own  eyes, 
in  order  surreptitiously  to  add  a  new  sin  to 
their  list.  Of  course  the  one  hour's  recrea 
tion  could  not  afford  time  enough  for  obser 
vation  now,  and  the  little  girls  were  driven 
to  all  sorts  of  excuses  to  get  out  of  the  class 
room  for  one  moment's  peep  through  the 
shutters ;  at  which  whole  swarms  of  them 
would  sometimes  be  caught  and  sent  into 
punishment. 

Only  two  days  more.  Madame  Joubert 
put  them  through  the  rehearsal,  a  most  im- 


PUPASSE  235 

portant  part  of  the  preparation,  almost  as 
important  as  catechism — how  to  enter  the 
church,  how  to  hold  the  candle,  how  to  ad 
vance,  how  to  kneel,  retire — everything,  in 
fact. 

Only  one  day  more,  the  quietest,  most  de 
votional  day  of  all.  Pupasse  lost  her  sins  ! 

Of  course  every  year  the  same  accident 
happened  to  some  one.  But  it  was  a  new 
accident  to  Pupasse.  And  such  a  long  list ! 

The  commotion  inside  that  retreat !  Pu- 
passe's  nasal  whine,  carrying  her  lament 
without  any  mystery  to  the  outside  garden. 
Such  searching  of  pockets,  rummaging  of 
corners,  microscopic  examination  of  the 
floor !  Such  crimination  and  recrimination, 
protestation,  asseveration,  assurances,  backed 
by  divine  and  saintly  invocations  !  Pupasse 
accused  companion  after  companion  of  filch 
ing  her  sins,  which  each  after  each  would 
violently  deny,  producing  each  her  own  list 
from  her  own  pocket, — proof  to  conviction  of 
innocence,  and,  we  may  say,  of  guilt  also. 

Pupasse  declared  they  had  filched  it  to 
copy,  because  her  list  was  the  longest  and 
most  complete.  She  could  not  go  to  confes 
sion  without  her  sins ;  she  could  not  go  to 


236  BALCONY    STORIES 

communion  without  confession.  The  tears 
rolled  down  her  long  thin  nose  unchecked, 
for  she  never  could  remember  to  use  her 
handkerchief  until  reminded  by  Madame 
Joubert. 

She  had  committed  it  to  memory,  as  all  the 
others  had  done  theirs ;  but  how  was  she  to 
know  without  the  list  if  she  had  not  forgotten 
something?  And  to  forget  one  thing  in  a  gen 
eral  confession  they  knew  was  a  mortal  sin. 

"  I  shall  tell  Madame  Joubert!  I  shall  tell 
Madame  Joubert !  " 

"Ma  chere !  "  whispered  the  little  ones 
outside.  "  Oh,  but  look  at  them  !  E lies  font 
les  quatre  cents  coups !  "  which  is  equivalent 
to  "cutting  up  like  the  mischief." 

And  with  reason.  As  if  such  an  influx 
of  the  world  upon  them  at  this  moment  were 
not  sufficient  of  itself  to  damn  them.  But  to 
tell  Madame  Joubert!  With  all  their  dres 
ses  made  and  ready,  wreaths,  veils,  candles, 
prayer-books,  picture-cards,  mother-of-pearl 
prayer-beads,  and  festival  breakfasts  with 
admiring  family  and  friends  prepared.  Tell 
Madame  Joubert !  She  would  simply  cancel 
it  all.  In  a  body  they  chorused: 

'•  But,  Pupasse!" 


PUPASSE  237 

"  Chere  Pupasse  !  " 

"  Voyons,  Pupasse  !  " 

"  I  assure  you,  Pupasse  !  " 

"  On  the  cross,  Pupasse  !  " 

'«  Ah,  Pupasse  !  " 

"  We  implore  you,  Pupasse  !  " 

The  only  response — tears,  and  "  I  shall  tell 
Madame  Joubert." 

Consultations,  caucuses,  individual  appeals, 
general  outbursts.  Pupasse  stood  in  the  cor 
ner.  Curiously,  she  always  sought  refuge  in 
the  very  sanctum  of  punishment,  her  face 
hidden  in  her  bended  arms,  her  hoops  stand 
ing  out  behind,  vouchsafing  nothing  but  tears, 
and  the  promise  to  tell  Madame  Joubert. 
And  three  o'clock  approaching !  And  Ma 
dame  Joubert  imminent !  But  Pupasse  really 
could  not  go  to  confession  without  her  sins. 
They  all  recognized  that ;  they  were  reason 
able,  as  they  assured  her. 

A  crisis  quickens  the  wits.  They  heard  the 
cathedral  clock  strike  the  quarter  to  three. 
They  whispered,  suggested,  argued — bunched 
in  the  farthest  corner  from  Pupasse. 

"  Console  yourself,  Pupasse  !  We  will  help 
you,  Pupasse !  Say  no  more  about  it !  We 
will  help  you  !  " 


238  BALCONY    STORIES 

A  delegate  was  sent  to  say  that.  She  was 
only  four  feet  and  a  half  high,  and  had  to 
stand  on  tiptoe  to  pluck  the  six-foot  Pupasse's 
dress  to  gain  her  attention. 

And  they  did  help  her  generously.  A  new 
sheet  of  fool's-cap  was  procured,  and  torn  in 
two,  lengthwise,  and  pinned  in  a  long  strip. 
One  by  one,  each  little  girl  took  it,  and, 
retiring  as  far  as  possible,  would  put  her 
hand  into  her  pocket,  and,  extracting  her  list, 
would  copy  it  in  full  on  the  new  paper.  Then 
she  would  fold  it  down,  and  give  it  to  the 
next  one,  until  all  had  written. 

"  Here,  Pupasse ;  here  are  all  our  sins. 
We  give  them  to  you  ;  you  can  have  them." 

Pupasse  was  radiant ;  she  was  more  than 
delighted,  and  the  more  she  read  the  better 
pleased  she  was.  Such  a  handsome  long  list, 
and  so  many  sins  she  had  never  thought  of — 
never  dreamed  of!  She  set  herself  with  zeal 
to  commit  them  to  memory.  But  a  hand  on 
the  door — Madame  Joubert !  You  never 
could  have  told  that  those  little  girls  had  not 
been  sitting  during  the  whole  time,  with  their 
hands  clasped  and  eyes  cast  up  to  the  ceiling, 
or  moving  their  lips  as  the  prayer-beads 
glided  through  their  fingers.  Their  versatility 
was  really  marvelous. 


PUPASSE  241 

Poor  Pupasse !  God  solved  the  dilemma 
of  her  education,  and  madame's  increasing 
sensitiveness  about  her  appearance  in  the 
fifth  class,  by  the  death  of  the  old  grand 
mother.  She  went  home  to  the  funeral,  and 
never  returned — or  at  least  she  returned,  but 
only  for  madame.  There  was  a  little  scene 
in  the  parlor :  Pupasse,  all  dressed  in  black, 
with  her  bag  of  primary  books  in  her  hand, 
ready  and  eager  to  get  back  to  her  classes 
and  fools'  caps ;  madame,  hesitating  between 
her  interests  and  her  fear  of  ridicule  ;  Madame 
Joubert,  between  her  loyalty  to  school  and 
her  conscience.  Pupasse  the  only  one  free 
and  untrammeled,  simple  and  direct. 

That  little  school  parlor  had  been  the  stage 
for  so  many  scenes !  Madame  Joubert  de 
tested  acting — the  comedy,  as  she  called  it. 
There  was  nothing  she  punished  with  more 
pleasure  up  in  her  room.  And  yet — 

"  Pupasse,  mafille,  give  me  your  grammar." 

The  old  battered,  primitive  book  was  got 
ten  out  of  the  bag,  the  string  still  tied  between 
the  leaves  for  convenience  in  hanging  around 
the  neck. 

"  Your  last  punishment:  the  rule  for  irreg 
ular  verbs.  Commence  !  " 

16 


242  BALCONY    STORIES 

"  I  know  it,  Madame  Joubert ;  I  know  it 
perfectly,  I  assure  you." 

"  Commence  !  " 

l<  Irregular  verbs — but  I  assure  you  I 
know  it — I  know  it  by  heart— 

"  Commence,  ma  fille  !  " 

"Irregular  verbs  —  irregular  verbs — I  know 
it,  Madame  Joubert  —  one  moment — "  and 
she  shook  her  right  hand,  as  girls  do  to  get 
inspiration,  they  say.  "  Irregular  verbs  — 
give  me  one  word,  Madame  Joubert ;  only 
one  word  !  " 

"That- 

"  Irregular  verbs,  that  —  irregular  verbs, 
that — " 

"  See  here,  Pupasse ;  you  do  not  know  that 
lesson  any  more  than  a  cat  does" — Madame 
Joubert's  favorite  comparison. 

"  Yes,  I  do,  Madame  Joubert !   Yes,  I  do  !  " 

"  Silence  !  " 

14  But,  Madame  Joubert — " 

"  Will  you  be  silent !  " 

"Yes,  Madame  Joubert;  only — " 

"Pupasse,  one  more  word  —  and — "  Ma 
dame  Joubert  was  forgetting  her  comedy  — 
"  Listen,  Pupasse,  and  obey  !  You  go  home 
and  learn  that  lesson.  When  you  know  it, 


PUPASSE  243 

you  can  reenter  your  class.  That  is  the 
punishment  I  have  thought  of  to  correct 
your  '  want  of  attention.' ' 

That  was  the  way  Madame  Joubert  put 
it — "want  of  attention." 

Pupasse  looked  at  her — at  madame,  a  si 
lent  but  potent  spectator.  To  be  sent  from 
home  because  she  did  not  know  the  rule  of 
the  irregular  verbs!  To  be  sent  from  home, 
family,  friends!  —  for  that  was  the  way  Pu 
passe  put  it.  She  had  been  in  that  school  — 
it  may  only  be  whispered — fifteen  years. 
Madame  Joubert  knew  it ;  so  did  madame, 
although  they  accounted  for  only  four  or  five 
years  in  each  class.  That  school  was  her 
home;  Madame  Joubert  —  God  help  her!  — 
her  mother ;  madame,  her  divinity ;  fools' 
caps  and  turnecl-up  skirts,  her  life.  The  old 
grandmother — she  it  was  who  had  done 
everything  for  her  (a  ci-devant  rag-picker, 
they  say);  she  it  was  who  was  nothing  to 
her. 

Madame  must  have  felt  something  of  it 
besides  the  loss  of  the  handsome  salary  for 
years  from  the  little  old  withered  woman. 
But  conventionality  is  inexorable ;  and  the 
St.  Denis's  ereat  recommendation  was  its 


244  BALCONY    STORIES 

conventionality.  Madame  Joubert  must  have 
felt  something  of  it, — she  must  have  felt 
something  of  it, — for  why  should  she  volun 
teer  ?  Certainly  madame  could  not  have 
imposed  that  upon  her.  It  must  have  been 
an  inspiration  of  the  moment,  or  a  move 
ment,  a  tress aillement,  of  the  heart. 

"  Listen,  Pupasse,  my  child.  Go  home, 
study  your  lesson  well.  I  shall  come  every 
evening  myself  and  hear  it ;  and  as  soon  as 
you  know  it,  I  shall  fetch  you  back  myself. 
You  know  I  always  keep  my  word." 

Keep  her  word  !  That  she  did.  Could  the 
inanimate  past  testify,  what  a  fluttering  of 
fools'  caps  in  that  parlor —  "  Daily  Bees,"  and 
"  Weekly  Couriers,"  by  the  year-full ! 

What  could  Pupasse  say  or  do  ?  It  settled 
the  question,  as  Madame  Joubert  assured 
madame,  when  the  tall,  thin  black  figure  with 
the  bag  of  books  disappeared  through  the 
gate. 

Madame  Joubert  was  never  known  to 
break  her  word ;  that  is  all  one  knows  about 
her  part  of  the  bargain. 

One  clay,  not  three  years  ago,  ringing  a 
bell  to  inquire  for  a  servant,  a  familiar  mur 
muring  fell  upon  the  ear,  and  an  old  ab^ce- 


PUPASSE  245 

daire's  eyes  could  not  resist  the  temptation 
to  look  through  the  shutters.  There  sat  Pu- 
passe ;  there  was  her  old  grammar ;  there 
were  both  ringers  stopping  her  ears — as  all 
studious  girls  do,  or  used  to  do ;  and  there 
sounded  the  old  words  composing  the  rule  for 
irregular  verbs. 

And  you  all  remember  how  long  it  is  since 
we  wore  funnel-shaped  hoop-skirts  ! 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DTJE  ON  THE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL 


25  CENTS 


WILL 

DAY     AND     T0 

OVERDUE. 


So 


PENALTY 

TH  E         ™E  F°URTH 
HE    SEVENTH    DAY 


|tfSplZtr^4 


K523 
b 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


